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What They Do Not Tell You about Indonesia by Jacobus E. Lato

June 20, 2017   Uncategorized   No comments
  • The doctrine, “all Muslims are your brothers and sisters,” was now everywhere.Community prayers, Friday prayers, newspapers and television programs started roaring the idea of Islamic supremacy.
  • At community prayer meetings, one often hears discussion on how to behave as Muslims. Now many seminars, conventions, and newspapers, especially during Ramadan, discuss the greatness of Muslims and Islam.

My kampong [village] lies in the suburbs of Surabaya, the second biggest city in Indonesia. Densely packed in a narrow alley, it consists of more than forty houses, stacked like logs, with no gaps at all to sneak in between. A handful of residents work for the government or public schools; some run small household shops. Most residents are Muslim, except for three families who are Christian.

A handful of plants provide us with green, but just down the road scattered stores have been soaring: a big franchise department store, a gas station, banks with long rows of automatic teller machines and facilities that make us feel like a small part of growing Indonesia.

When we first moved here, it seemed ideal. There were only twelve families; they got together at events; we felt close. Communal meetings were held each month; the host would prepare snacks and even sometimes meals. If one of us were in the nearby hospital, we would usually drive together in groups to pay a visit after collecting small contributions to give the sick person. Only one lady, a convert to Islam, wore a headscarf; others only wore it when necessary: at public meetings, celebrations, or Independence Day, August 17.

Saturday nights were the long night. People sat outside on paving stones or rough and humble chairs, and discussed many matters, especially before elections. Indonesia was then under President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, a graduate of America’s Webster University.

Religious days were marked as moments of happiness and joy. People opened wide their hearts; heaven was coming down and moving us. We visited each other after Eid al Fitr‘s early morning prayer. Everyone said, “Minal Aidin Wal Fa Idzin” (“Many happy returns”) and “Mohon Maaf Lahir Batin” (“Please forgive my wrongdoings”). The long-held tradition of Megengan, when families exchange food or snacks — not just Muslims but Christians, Catholics, Hindus and Buddhists — always preceded Ramadan.

On Christmas, the three Christian families would welcome visitors. Visits to our house by our Muslim friends inspired us to see how great our nation was, and of course our religions. Our Muslim friends would say, “Merry Christmas”.

“Islam with a smiling face,” was what Newsweek called Indonesian Islam in 1996. The statement made us proud of our cultural hospitality (about 90% of Indonesians are Muslim): Everyone was kind; everyone was moderate; everyone respected humanistic values and a harmonious life.

But, along with the fall of Suharto after 32 years in power, a few Indonesian Muslims, who apparently share some worldwide dreams, began to try to realize this dream. Hardliner clerics, who had lived in exile under Suharto, returned. They made their way into the masses, into the power blocs supported by their networks and their donors. The dream, particularly among a handful of the educated elite, of establishing a Muslim state, or at least a Muslim society, began rushing to the surface.

There is no need for the innocent majority to have a “great idea”; their only needs are leaders and direction. The new leaders then disseminated their ideas: the greatness of Islam, the greatness of Muslims, the greatness of Islamic kinship. The doctrine, “all Muslims are your brothers and sisters,” was now everywhere.

Some hardliner clerics moved out from their traditional boarding schools and started climbing the political ladder. Some of them, including those clerics belonging to the Council of Indonesian Clerics (MUI) — the highest Islamic body in the country — and some of the descendants of Saudi or Yemeni clerics, bluntly displayed their new aroma of Islam: Middle East Islam. Community prayers, Friday prayers, newspapers and television programs started roaring the idea of Islamic supremacy.

Many changes took place. In 1980, under Suharto and his powerful, bureaucratic Golkar Party, women almost never wore a headscarf, let alone the monotonous hijab or niqab. Many women then were on the lookout for brand new colorful scarves and cosmetics. These women are lucky: new branded products, armed with halal certifications from our MUI, are on the rise in shops. Arabian-style dresses are on display in boutiques. Arab-style long coats with headscarves are commonplace. A sea of white dresses inundates the public squares, communal prayer meetings, mosques. A leading figure in Surabaya, who requested anonymity, said, “Nowadays Muslim women feel uncomfortable if they do not wear a headscarf. They might be considered unfaithful or not sufficiently devout.”

Men with long and loose beards, marked foreheads and Arabian-style dress hold a Muslim type of rosary; they chant various names of God as their lips move silently — are now common. At community prayer meetings, one often hears discussions on how to behave as Muslims. Seminars, conventions and newspapers, especially during Ramadan, discuss the greatness of Muslims and Islam.

Unfortunately, along with those developments, our happy moments are disappearing at high speed. Being Muslim, for some, means excluding others. A polarization happens; some people do not want to deal with people of another religion.

There are stories of raids on churches, Christian shrines and mosques run by the small Ahmadiya sect. Other religious days, especially Christmas, are now marked by those for and against them, thanks to fatwas.

MUI, Indonesia’s highest Islamic body, says it no longer wants Muslims to greet Christians during Christmas; it is considered a sin. Many people are afraid of being labeled unfaithful or blamed for being kind to Christians. We still can shake hands, but anything else is now forbidden. “Saying ‘Merry Christmas’ is against my religion,” a friend explained to me. “The greeting acknowledges Jesus Christ as Allah.”

Valentine’s Day is another of many concerns about the supposed “Christian influence.” Some department heads at educational agencies have issued circulars, banning students from celebrating it (here, here, here).

On March 12, King Salman of Saudi Arabia ended his visit to Indonesia; he boarded his royal airline and headed to Japan. Ash around the runway blew into the air. All memories of His Highness’s visit reside in our people’s mind, even while we were wishing His Majesty farewell.

After the oil boom, Iran’s Revolution and the 444 days of the U.S. Embassy hostage crisis in Iran, Indonesian Muslims believed Muslim power was returning.

President Joko Widodo of Indonesia (foreground, left) meets with King Salman of Saudi Arabia (foreground, right), at Halim Perdanakusuma Airport in Indonesia. (Image source: Indonesian Presidential Palace)

Jacobus E. Lato, a writer, is based in Surabaya, Indonesia.

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What Politicians Say vs. What People Can See

June 20, 2017   Uncategorized   No comments

  • Throughout a bombing-and-murder campaign lasting three decades, the BBC never referred to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) as the “so-called IRA.” If you flatten ISIS’s military, the strong-horse appeal of ISIS would simply go away. If there is nothing to join, no one can join it.

  • Cameron’s and Obama’s tactic is to deny something that Muslims and non-Muslims can easily see and find out for themselves: that ISIS has a lot to do with Islam — the worst possible version, obviously, for Muslims and non-Muslims alike, but a version of Islam nevertheless.

    • A few days after the massacre of 30 British subjects on a Tunisian beach, the UK Prime Minister, David Cameron, used an interview on the BBC to berate the broadcaster and others for using the term “Islamic State.” Mr. Cameron’s suggestion was that the broadcaster should either refer to the “so-called Islamic State,” use the acronym “ISIL,” or adopt the Arabic term, “Daesh.”

      None of these suggestions is workable. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) was never the “army” of the Irish Republic. It was instead a group of sectarian terrorists who claimed to fight for a community that was largely disgusted by their actions. Yet throughout a bombing and murder campaign lasting three decades, the BBC never referred to the IRA as the “so-called IRA.” The group called itself the IRA, and so broadcasters and others referred to it as such. One might wish to call such groups all sorts of things, but calling by the name its leaders adopt is the easiest option of presenting the facts and not getting bogged down in nomenclature.

      The Prime Minister’s other suggestions — that the Islamic State should either be called “ISIL” or “Daesh” — are equally doomed to failure. For ISIL of course simply means “Islamic State of Iraq and Levant,” while “Daesh” is effectively an Arabic acronym of the same. If the aim of all this wordplay is that the general public dissociate “Islamic State” from Islam, there seems little hope that this will much help to break the connection. After all, what if someone — anyone — asks what ISIL or Daesh stand for? What should people then say in response?

      Of course, the problem that the Prime Minister got into on this occasion is the same problem he and all other world leaders get into whenever they adopt the “Islam is a religion of peace” line. What they are perfectly understandably trying to do is to disentangle more than a billion Muslims worldwide (and specifically the tens of millions of Muslims in Western democracies) from the violent jihadists in their religion. At the same time, they — again understandably — hope to give the message to their non-Muslim publics that they should not blame Muslims everywhere for the actions of this violent minority.

      This is a laudable aim, but it is doomed to failure because members of the public no longer rely on either politicians or the mainstream media as their only sources of information or news. They can perfectly well get on the internet and find things out for themselves, and it is in this growing gulf between what politicians say and what the general public can perfectly easily find out for itself that a real long-term danger could emerge.

      Why won’t the public believe them when they explain that the “so-called Islamic State” has nothing to do with Islam? Pictured left, UK Prime Minister David Cameron. At right, US President Barack Obama.

      All this is really a reminder that if we are in a war with ISIS, it is one in which we are performing very badly. Consider something said by Mr. Cameron’s American counterpart a week after Cameron’s statement. President Barack Obama gave a press conference at the Pentagon in which he, too, discussed the group that must not be named. On this occasion, the President said that the fight against ISIS was “not simply a military effort,” and went on to say, “Ideologies are not defeated with guns, they are defeated by better ideas, a more attractive and more compelling vision.”

      Of course suggesting that there are many people who think a military solution alone can solve the ISIS problem is to create a straw man argument. But it is surely almost undeniable that the best thing on ISIS’s side at the moment (and the cause of their current recruitment drive) is that they are seen to be not only on the offensive but on the way up — gaining ground both figuratively and literally. When they take over whole cities in what used to be Syria or Iraq, radicalized young men and women from across the world, who might have been vacillating on whether or not to jump on board with the group, get galvanized in its direction. But if you flatten ISIS’s military, the strong-horse appeal of ISIS would simply go away. If there is nothing to join, no one can join it.

      President Obama is right to say that no ideology can be destroyed on the battlefield alone. The destruction of Nazi fascism in the 1940s was completed not only by its wholesale military defeat but by the world’s awareness of the evil of the Nazi ideology and its wholesale moral and ethical failure. If the destruction of ISIS’s ideology is to be complete, this too will have to be understood. But the U.S. and its allies ought to be wondering what is going wrong here. Although the numbers of citizens we are losing to ISIS constitute only tiny pockets of our own societies (if larger numbers across the Middle East and North Africa), we ought to consider how we are even losing people in ones and twos in a public relations war with this group.

      While the Nazis tried to hide their worst crimes from the world, the followers of ISIS repeatedly record and distribute video footage of theirs. Between free and open democratic societies, and a society which beheads women for witchcraft, throws suspected gays off buildings, beheads other Muslims and Christians, burns people alive, and does us the favour of video-recording these atrocities and sending them round the globe for us, you would have thought that there would be no moral competition. But there is. And that is not because ISIS has “better ideas, a more attractive and more compelling vision,” but because its appeal comes from a specific ideological-religious worldview that we cannot hope to defeat if we refuse to understand it.

      That is why David Cameron’s interjection was so important. The strategy Barack Obama and he seem to be hoping will work in persuading the general public that ISIS has nothing to do with Islam is the same tactic they are adopting in the hope of persuading young Muslims not to join ISIS. Their tactic is to try to deny something that Muslims and non-Muslims can easily see and find out for themselves: that ISIS has a lot to do with Islam — the worst possible version, obviously, for Muslims and non-Muslims alike, but a version of Islam nevertheless.

      ISIS can destroy its own credibility among advocates of human rights and liberal democracy. The question is how you destroy its credibility among people who want to be very Islamic, and think ISIS is their way of being so. Understand their claims and their appeal, and work out a way to undermine those, and ISIS will prove defeatable not only on the battlefield but in the field of ideas as well. But refuse to acknowledge what drives them, or from where they claim to get their legitimacy, and the problem will only have just started.

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What North Korea Should Teach Us about Iran by Alan M. Dershowitz

June 20, 2017   Uncategorized   No comments

We failed to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. As a result, our options to stop them from developing a delivery system capable of reaching our shores are severely limited.

The hard lesson from our failure to stop North Korea before they became a nuclear power is that we MUST stop Iran from ever developing or acquiring a nuclear arsenal. A nuclear Iran would be far more dangerous to American interests than a nuclear North Korea. Iran already has missiles capable of reaching numerous American allies. They are in the process of upgrading them and making them capable of delivering a nuclear payload to our shores. Its fundamentalist religious leaders would be willing to sacrifice millions of Iranians to destroy the “Big Satan” (United States) or the “Little Satan” (Israel).

The late “moderate” leader Hashemi Rafsanjani once told an American journalist that if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons, they “would kill as many as five million Jews,” and that if Israel retaliated, they would kill fifteen million Iranians, which would be “a small sacrifice from among the billion Muslims in the world.” He concluded that “it is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality.” Recall that the Iranian mullahs were willing to sacrifice thousands of “child-soldiers” in their futile war with Iraq. There is nothing more dangerous than a “suicide regime” armed with nuclear weapons.

The deal signed by Iran in 2015 postpones Iran’s quest for a nuclear arsenal, but it doesn’t prevent it, despite Iran’s unequivocal statement in the preamble to the agreement that “Iran reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire nuclear weapons.” (Emphasis added). Recall that North Korea provided similar assurances to the Clinton Administration back in 1994, only to break them several years later — with no real consequences. The Iranian mullahs apparently regard their reaffirmation as merely hortatory and not legally binding. The body of the agreement itself — the portion Iran believes is legally binding — does not preclude Iran from developing nuclear weapons after a certain time, variously estimated as between 10 to 15 years from the signing of the agreement. Nor does it prevent Iran from perfecting its delivery systems, including nuclear tipped inter-continental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the United States.

If we are not to make the same mistake with Iran that we made with North Korea, we must do something now – before Iran secures a weapon – to deter the mullahs from becoming a nuclear power, over which we would have little or no leverage.

Congress should now enact legislation declaring that Iran’s reaffirmation that it will never “develop or acquire nuclear weapons” is an integral part of the agreement and represents the policy of the United States. It is too late to change the words of the deal, but it is not too late for Congress to insist that Iran comply fully with all of its provisions, even those in the preamble.

In order to ensure that the entirety of the agreement is carried out, including that reaffirmation, Congress should adopt the proposal made by Thomas L. Friedman on 22 July 2015 and by myself on 5 September 2013. To quote Friedman:

“Congress should pass a resolution authorizing this and future presidents to use force to prevent Iran from ever becoming a nuclear weapons state … Iran must know now that the U.S. president is authorized to destroy – without warning or negotiation – any attempt by Tehran to build a bomb.”

I put it similarly: Congress should authorize the President “to take military action against Iran’s nuclear weapon’s program if it were to cross the red lines….”

The benefits of enacting such legislation are clear: the law would underline the centrality to the deal of Iran’s reaffirmation never to acquire nuclear weapons, and would provide both a deterrent against Iran violating its reaffirmation and an enforcement authorization in the event it does.

A law based on these two elements — adopting Iran’s reaffirmation as the official American policy and authorizing a preventive military strike if Iran tried to obtain nuclear weapons — may be an alternative we can live with. But without such an alternative, the deal as currently interpreted by Iran will not prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. In all probability, it would merely postpone that catastrophe for about a decade while legitimating its occurrence. This is not an outcome we can live with, as evidenced by the crisis we are now confronting with North Korea. So let us learn from our mistake and not repeat it with Iran.

Alan M. Dershowitz, Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Emeritus, at Harvard Law School and author of Taking the Stand: My Life in the Law and Electile Dysfunction: A Guide for the Unaroused Voter.

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What Is the Muslim Brotherhood? by Thomas Quiggin

June 20, 2017   Uncategorized   No comments
  • A variety of groups ascribe to the Islamist objective of imposing their politicized beliefs on others. Included in these are ISIS, al-Qaeda and Hizb ut-Tahrir. However, the largest and best organized of all the Islamist groups is the Muslim Brotherhood. It is the well-spring from which the Islamist ideology flows.
  • The founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna, stated that “It is in the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.”
  • A bill, introduced by Senator Ted Cruz, to have the Muslim Brotherhood designated as a terrorist group would have far-reaching impact, and be the single greatest blow stuck against Islamist extremism in the USA.
  • The Muslim Brotherhood operating in the U.S. made it clear that “their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
  • The North Atlantic Islamic Trust, according to former FBI Agent Robert Stauffer, “served as a financial holding company for Muslim Brotherhood-related groups.” This money was wired into the U.S. from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Egypt, Malaysia and Libya.

Muslims living in the United States likely have little to fear from the Trump Administration and the 115th Congress. By contrast, Islamists living in the United States have grounds to be worried.

A bill introduced by Senator Ted Cruz to have the Muslim Brotherhood designated as a terrorist group could have far-reaching implications, many of which have received little public attention. The bill, if acted upon, would be the single greatest blow stuck against Islamist extremism in the USA. It would also have far reaching impact in Canada and elsewhere.

Islamists are those who have the desire to “impose any interpretation of Islam over society by law.” A variety of groups ascribe to the Islamist objective of imposing their politicized beliefs on others. Included in these are ISIS, al-Qaeda and Hizb ut-Tahrir. However, the largest and best organized of all the Islamist groups is the Muslim Brotherhood. They are the well-spring from which the Islamist ideology flows. The founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, Hassan al-Banna, stated that “It is in the nature of Islam to dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.”

The emblem of the Muslim Brotherhood, and its founder, Hassan al-Banna.

The Muslim Brotherhood operating in the United States made it clear that:

“their work in America is a kind of grand jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”

The producer of the memorandum from which this statement is derived was Mohamed Akram (A.K.A. Mohammad Akram Al-Adlouni). He is now the Secretary General of al-Quds International, the international think tank of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Today, according to a 2015 report, Mohammed Akram Adlouni is the General Secretary of the Al Quds International Foundation, a Special Designated Global Terrorist entity, accused by the U.S. Treasury Department of financing Hamas. The Treasury Department notes:

“Hamas’s leadership runs all of the foundation’s affairs through Hamas members who serve on the Board of Trustees, the Board of Directors, and other administrative committees. All documents, plans, budgets, and projects of Al-Quds are drafted by Hamas officials. Several senior Hamas officials, including Specially Designated Global Terrorists Musa Abu-Marzuq and Usama Hamdan, served on Al-Quds’ Board of Trustees. Representatives at an Al-Quds conference were told to consider themselves unofficial ambassadors for Hamas in their respective countries.”

The chairman of the board of trustees of the Al Quds International Foundation is identified as Qatar-based Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the spiritual leadership figure of the Muslim Brotherhood. Qaradawi is the subject of an Interpol Red Notice.

The Senate Bill – S.68

Senate Bill S.68, would not only have the effect of designating the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist entity, but it would also list three Muslim Brotherhood front groups: The Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT).

CAIR has already been identified as a Muslim Brotherhood front organization, founded to advance the cause of Hamas, and it was listed as a terrorist entity by the United Arab Emirates in 2014. CAIR functions as the public relations and legal arm of the Muslim Brotherhood and it regularly launches lawsuits against those who speak out against extremist Islam. Its designation as a terrorist group would severely damage the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas.

ISNA was the first of the major Muslim Brotherhood groups formed out of the Muslim Student Association (MSA), itself formed by Muslim Brotherhood adherents. Its loss would undermine the Muslim Brotherhood on multiple levels.

The Major Impact

The most important issue in Bill S.68 may be the inclusion of the NAIT – the North American Islamic Trust. Formed in 1973, it can fairly described as a waqf, which is the Islamic finance equal to a trust or endowment fund.

The property and cash holdings of the NAIT have never been made completely clear. CAIR itself stated that the NAIT holds the title of some 27% of the 1200 mosques in the USA. The NAIT website states that it “holds the title of approximately 300 properties.” This means that the Muslim Brotherhood controls a large number of mosques and other properties in the U.S. where the message of the Brotherhood is spread.

Former FBI Agent Robert Stauffer led a 1980s investigation into the NAIT, including its role in the ideological takeover of moderate mosques. At that time, he assessed that the ISNA received millions of dollars from the NAIT, which he says “served as a financial holding company for Muslim Brotherhood-related groups.” This money was wired into the U.S. from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Egypt, Malaysia and Libya.

Like CAIR and ISNA, NAIT would have its assets frozen if it is designated as a terrorist group. This would include property such as real estate, as well as cash and other assets held in bank accounts. The responsibility for this would mainly fall to the Department of the Treasury, the Justice Department and the integrated inter-agency strategy known as National Money Laundering Strategy (NMLS).

In addition to stripping the Muslim Brotherhood of its assets, Bill S.68 would also have the effect of silencing the extremist voice of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S., along with its extensive network of collaborators. The financial inflow from other countries would be stopped (think Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey), while funding to Muslim Brotherhood front groups in other countries would be halted as well (think Canada).

This bill would be a most helpful first step in countering what seems to be on the part of many a purposeful global jihad.

Tom Quiggin, a court qualified expert on terrorism and practical intelligence, is based in Canada.

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What Is Canada Doing Celebrating Hijab Day? by Shabnam Assadollahi

June 20, 2017   Uncategorized   No comments
  • The outrage is that Hijab Solidarity Day will be taking place under the auspices of the City of Ottawa, the capital of Canada. It is not the role of a democratic government to celebrate religious symbols or to help religions proselytize.
  • The government’s acceptance of an Ottawa Hijab Solidarity Day amounts to accepting a radical legal system that is completely contrary to Canada’s democratic values, and crosses the line that separates Church and State. Endorsing the hijab is endorsing the first step of an extremist ideology that leads to and condones honor killings, female genital mutilation (FGM) and the oppression of women.
  • In 2007, Aqsa Parvez, a 16-year-old Pakistani Muslim living in Toronto, was strangled to death by her father. Her crime was that, as a free woman in Canada, she chose not to wear a hijab. In another case in Canada, in 2012, four Muslim women were murdered by their own family for refusing to wear a hijab and preferring Western clothing.

This Thursday, February 25, 2016, the city of Ottawa will be holding a public event celebrating the hijab, Islam’s physical repression of women.

The City for All Women Initiative (CAWI) organization, backed by the City Council of Ottawa, is hosting the Ottawa Hijab Solidarity Day celebration, also called “Walking with Our Muslims Sisters,” at City Hall. According to CAWI, the main purpose of this event is to encourage non-Muslim women to wear a hijab to understand life as a Muslim woman.

The outrage is that such an event will be taking place under the auspices of the City of Ottawa, the capital of Canada. Under Islamic Shari’a law, the hijab is an expression of the suppression of women and is used as a tool to persecute women by their male counterparts.

For many secular and former Muslim women, the hijab is anything but a symbol of freedom. The hijab serves as a physical daily reminder that they, women, are second-class citizens in the eyes of Islam.

Proponents of the hijab threw me into an Iranian prison for 18 months when I was 16, for protesting Islamic extremism. My family and I were forced to flee; we finally found refuge in Canada.

I have since worked to expose the truth about the Shari’a-guided regime of Iran, as well as advocating for the emancipation of minorities and women.

While critics of CAWI’s event, including myself, have been wrongfully characterized as “Islamophobes,” this could not be further from the truth. A woman in Canada has the right to wear what she chooses — but why celebrate the hijab, any more than the crucifix or a skullcap? It is not the place of government to do that.

In Iran, where I was born, women are slowly beginning to stand up against the regime’s Shari’a-minded repression. One group, My Stealthy Freedom, describes itself as “an online social movement where Iranian women share photos of themselves without wearing the hijab.”

The fact that Muslim women in Iran go to such dangerous lengths, risking arrest and even death, to take a stand against their own religion’s oppression is in itself a significant act.

Forcing women to wear a hijab is not unique to Iran. In Afghanistan and some parts of Saudi Arabia, women face beatings, fines and even worse outcomes for showing their hair. In 2002, in Saudi Arabia, “religious police stopped schoolgirls from leaving a blazing building because they were not wearing correct Islamic dress… the headscarves and abayas (black robes) required by the kingdom’s strict interpretation of Islam.” Fifteen girls died in the fire and more than 50 others were injured.

In a practice inaugurated by Muslims, purdah, women are shut away from society, literally imprisoned by their own families.

While one may assume that the persecution of Muslim women by Muslims does not take place within Canada’s borders, facts state otherwise. In 2007, Aqsa Parvez, a 16-year-old Pakistani Muslim living in Toronto, was strangled to death by her father. Her crime was that, as a free woman in Canada, she chose not to wear a hijab.

In another case in Canada, in 2012, Afghan-born Mohammad Shafia, his wife and their son were found guilty for the honor killing of the Shafia’s three daughters – Zainab, 19, Sahar, 17, and Geeti, 13 — as well as Mohammad’s second wife, Rona Mohammad Amir, 50. All four women were murdered by their own family for refusing to wear a hijab and preferring Western clothing.

In 2007, Aqsa Parvez, a 16-year-old Pakistani Muslim living in Toronto, was strangled to death by her father. Her crime was that, as a free woman in Canada, she chose not to wear a hijab.

The government’s acceptance of an Ottawa Hijab Day amounts to accepting a radical legal system that is completely contrary to Canada’s democratic values, and crosses the line that separates Church and State. Endorsing the wearing of the hijab is endorsing the first step of an extremist ideology that leads to and condones honor killings, female genital mutilation (FGM) and the oppression of women.

When this author wrote an open letter written to Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson, by way of response, his spokesman told the Ottawa Sun that the mayor will not intervene “in this difference of opinion between this individual and the event organizers” since the event “conforms with relevant policies… It is not my role to tell people what they should wear.” And it is not the role of a democratic government to celebrate religious symbols or to help religions proselytize.

Perhaps the Ottawa government would like to hold celebrations for “Ottawa Crucifix Solidarity Day,” “Ottawa Kippah Day” and “Ottawa Parsi Turban Day”?

The City of Ottawa, the capital of Canada seriously needs to reconsider its support for CAWI’s event.

Shabnam Assadollahi, who had to flee from Iran for protesting Islamic extremism, is a human rights activist based in Canada.

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