Daring to Utter the I-Word on International Women's Day

On International Women's Day, what crossed my mind was the Violence Against Women exhibit I had walked past in the lobby of the Central Library on Dec. 6th, and the photos I had taken there but never found time to post. The exhibit marked the anniversary of the murder of 17 women at L'ecole Polytechnique in Montreal by Marc Lapine but was intended to raise awareness about violations of women everywhere.

The women hosting the display had posted an assertion on one of their billboards that they believed it was important to identify themselves as "feminists" in a public space.

They were willing to use the F-word in public space but apparently not the I-word.  The fact that the shotgun murders of these 14 women was at least partially a product of the misogyny of Islam is one that has been largely censored by feminists as well as the mainstream media in Canada.

Marc Lapine was born Gamil Gharbi but he changed his name at the age of 14.  His father was an Algerian-born follower of Islam, whose Canadian-born wife discovered, as she told a divorce court, that he "had a total disdain for women and believed they were intended only to serve men." It’s not an accident that he had that attitude. That’s what Mohammed taught, the prophet who spoke for Allah.

And it may not be an accident that his son Marc Lepine was yelling “alla akber or something…” (sounds suspiciously like "God is great" in Arabic)  as he gunned women down, a female witness told a radio station on the day of the massacre. That was reported by writer Mark Steyn, whose source was a good friend in Montreal. But that radio interview was never to be heard again. Censored.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somalia-born devout Muslim who became a feminist and has written about Islam’s misogyny, says that Islam, unlike other religions such as Christianity and Judaism, is determined to push the world back into the 7th Century. Islamists responded by issuing a death order. She now needs 24 hr. guards. That’s the way Islam deals with feminists. It’s hardly surprising that Marc Lepine yelled, “feminists!” as he gunned down women at L’ecole Polytechnique.  

But western liberals, leftists, feminists -- with a few exceptions such as the feminist writer Phyllis Chesler who was once married to a man from Afghanistan -- protect Islam. Take an example from the Downtown Eastside:  when Islam's misogyny was mentioned on the Downtown Eastside Enquirer, a woman who lives at the Lori Krill Housing Co-operative, a bastion of political correctness on Cordova St., sent us a message accusing us of making "racist commentary about Muslims". Being Muslim isn't a race.  But never let the facts interfere with shaming critics into censoring themselves about Islam's trampling of women's rights.

In the days leading up to International Women's Day, the Islamic court in Saudi Arabia upheld the marriage of an 8 year old girl to a 47 year old man to pay off her father's debts.  In the days following International Women's Day, the Islamic court sentenced a 75-year old woman to 40 lashes and a prison term for being in the same room as two men who were not relatives, even though they were just delivering bread.

Married eight-year old 

Next year on International Women's Day, do women a favor:  use the I-word in a public space.  

Alberta Human Rights Commission "Applying Saudi Values" in Canada

Last week, Ezra Levant called the Alberta Human Rights Commission every name in the book: a" kangeroo court"; "part Kafka, part Stalin"; a "joke", a "sick joke"; a "pseudo-court like Judge Judy". Levant, publisher of the Western Standard, said it was "perverted" that a so-called human rights commission was violating his human rights. Levant even called one of the human rights officers a "thug", to her face.

More than a few Canadians in the blogosphere have something to say to Levant: "You're right." Truepeers, a blogger at Covenant Zone says the Levant case has left him feeling "ashamed to be Canadian".

"We have a tradition of free speech in Canada," Levant told the Commission, after being hauled in front of it for the "political crime" of publishing cartoons critical of the Prophet Mohammed in 2006.

The cartoons, originally published in a newspaper in Denmark, became a lightening rod for tension between the Western tradition of free speech and the insistence by Muslim clerics that Islam's prophet Mohammad be protected from criticism. The Western Standard was one of many publications around the world which published the cartoons as a political statement that free speech would not stop for religion.

"It was the proudest moment of my public life," Levant told the Commission.

The complaint against Levant was lodged by a Saudi-trained imam, Syed Soharwardy. Levant told the Commission that Soharwardy is "a radical Muslim imam, who was trained at an officially anti-semitic university in Saudi Arabia who has called for sharia law to govern Canada".

On the Commission's official form, Soharwardy entered "religious beliefs" in the box requiring him to identify the "Grounds" for his complaint. Levant's response to Soharwardy was, "A secular government bureaucracy has essentially been hijacked by a radical Muslim imam. It's being used to further his fatwa against these cartoons."

For a publisher to be called to the Human Rights Commission to be interrogated about political or religious views expressed is a violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Levant pointed out. "This commission is applying Saudi values, not Canadian values."

Levant reminded the Commission that even Alan Borovoy, the prominent Canadian civil libertarian who helped set up Human Rights Commissions in Canada in the 1960s and 70s, believes that the Commission is overstepping their mandate in acting as a press censor. Borovoy wrote, in regard to the complaint against the Western Standard, that being a censor was "hardly the role we had envisioned for human rights commissions. There should be no
question of the right to publish the impugned cartoons."

Human Rights Commissions are quasi-judicial bodies set up to arbitrate rental and employment disputes, where a person believes they had been discriminated against based on race or gender.

Levant videotaped his appearance in front of the Commission as he intends to use it when he takes his battle with the Commission to "real" court. The Commission's "human rights officer" initially objected, then asked that the videotape be kept confidential. Levant later noted on his website that it came as no surprise that a censor would prefer to operate "in the dark." He then put the videotape on YouTube. It's a hit.

And on Levant's comparison of the Alberta Human Rights Commission and a Judge Judy pseudo-court, Judge Judy came out on top. "...Judge Judy actually was a judge whereas none of the commission's panelists are judges, and some aren't even lawyers," Levant said. "And, unlike the commission, Judge Judy believes in freedom of speech."

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Read about another human rights case:
United Way Implicated in Political Psychiatry Comparable to China

The Courage of Aqsa Parvez

Islam kills girls and women all the time. Kills them, beats them, cuts off their clitorises. So it came as no surprise that Aqsa Parvez had the life strangled out of her.

When 16 yr. old Mississauga high school student, Asqa Parvez, stood up to her fundamentalist Islamic father, Muhammed Parvez, over his insistence that she wear a hijab and succumb to other religious restraints, she risked being killed. And according to her friends, she knew it. She knew Islam.

Aqsa’s friend, Dominiquia Holmes-Thompson, 16, recalled Aqsa saying that it was possible that something could “happen” to her. Asqa was afraid of her father, according to friends, who say he strictly controlled her and would not allow her to go out. She was seen at school with bruises. She began staying at the home of a high school friend, defying her father. “He said that if she leaves, he would kill her”, Holmes-Thompson says.

Asqa was willing to stay in a shelter. But she returned home one last time, reportedly after her brother saw her at a bus stop and offered to take her home to get a change of clothing. It is not uncommon for a brother in a Muslim family in Pakistan — where Asqa was born — to lure a girl to a place where the family can make her the target of an “honor killing”, an angle now being investigated by police. It was after Asqa returned home that her father called 911 and said, “I killed my daughter.”

When Asqa -- Al Asqa is the name of a Muslim Holy site -- stood up to her fundamentalist Islamic father, she was doing a favor for women everywhere at risk from Islam. Like those who fought Sharia law in Ontario, did all women a favor. And like a few female teachers in Ontario did all women a favor a few years back when they said they did not want girls to wear the hijab in their classrooms because it was a sign of the subjugation of women.

And now Asqa’s dead, which underscores just why Islam has to be stood up to, instead of being coddled by the great Canadian multi-culti bear hug.


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Guess who else had an Islamic father who believed women should be subordinate? Marc Lepine, aka Gamil Gharbi, who massacred 14 women at L'ecole Polytechnique in Montreal. (See "Wet P*ssy Benches" Commemorate Murdered Women on this blog.)