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Ed Webb

Azza al Garf: Is she Egypt's answer to Michele Bachmann? - Slate Magazine - 0 views

  • The rise of the strong female politician with regressive ideas about women’s rights seems to be a global phenomenon. In Egypt, the sisters of the Muslim Brotherhood share similarities with the extreme right wing of the Republican Party including relying on the supernatural advice of a “higher power” for their political involvement and an unabashed commitment to policies that limit or reverse women’s rights. Though these women have benefitted from the notion that women are equal, they work hard to differentiate themselves from feminists and attack them whenever possible
  • Funded by infusions of hundreds of millions of dollars over the years from conservative donors in the Gulf countries, al Garf and thousands of women like her have a powerful political ground game the Tea Partiers can only look upon with awe.
  • She understands that the majority of Egypt’s poor women already work outside the home and must at least travel alongside men, often supporting deadbeat husbands and children
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  • there is no correlation between the Muslim Brotherhood's rise to power and sexual harassment. Sexual harassment has existed long before they came along
  • This article reeks of prejudice and confirmation bias with the author conveying her pre-conceived notions of what she expects an islamic party or muslims to behave and act like regardless of what she saw in actuality. 
  • The fact is that women in Egypt and other countries in the region are already legally second class citizens, and one would hope that their revolution, to which the women gave so much, would begin to change that, rather than have a regressive effect.
  • Although I am no fan of the Brotherhood (or the Tea Party), I am dismayed by crude generalizations and stereotypes employed by this author. I would hope that Slate could choose something a little more insightful to present to Western readers wanting to understand the Islamist movement (and what this means for the shape of politics in the Middle East) instead of perpetuating crude stereotypes.  
  • Nina, you are not fit to write about the "fate" of women after any Arab revolution. As an Arab, Muslim FEMINIST who "swaddles" herself in a headscarf, I can tell you that you just don't know enough. Plain and simple. I know Egyptian womyn who "swaddle" themselves in headscarves and identify as anarchists. I know Egyptian womyn who "swaddle" themselves in headscarves and go tagging in downtown Cairo. I know Egyptian womyn who "swaddle" themselves in headscarves and are members of the Revolutionary Socialist movement. I wonder if these womyn will be featured in your book. Probably not because it seems to me you have a very specific portrait you'd like to portray about the Arab, Muslim womyn donning the headscarf.
  • the orientalising nature of this piece
  • are you sure those are 'conservative' foreign donors? are they even the majority of donors? Are you implying the most popular political party in egypt for the last century cannot afford to pay its own bills? Actually 'conservative' donors would donate to the salafis, not to the Muslim Brotherhood. 
  • There are massive social and economic problems in Egypt and in the Arab world at large. And yeah, women are largely treated as second-class citizen and face cultural and legal hurdles. But this is not something that outsiders can fix. Every society and every culture changes on their own terms. The fact that Azza al-Garf is even in that position is progress. Whether or not one likes it, religious women are seen to have more "legitimacy" when it comes to challenging and changing the cultural mores in many Islamic societies than outsiders or people deemed to be too "Western."  And really, swaddled? I'm an American Muslim woman who has worn all sorts of garb. Sorry, but her abaya is likely far more comfortable than whatever business suit the author was wearing.
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    Heh. Not great journalism, some good comments.
Ed Webb

Anti-Shariah movement loses steam in state legislatures | The Christian Century - 0 views

  • In New Jersey, Republican Gov. Chris Christie pounced on critics last year who said he was allowing Shariah into American courts after he appointed a Muslim judge to the state's Superior Court. "This Sharia law business is crap," Christie said in his signature blunt style. "It's just crazy. And I'm tired of dealing with the crazies."
Ed Webb

Is Support From American Evangelicals a Good Thing for Israel? - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • In a Pew Research Center survey published earlier this month, 40 percent of white evangelicals claimed that the United States is “not supportive enough” of Israel (only 17 percent of white mainstream Protestants and 14 percent of Catholics agreed).
Ed Webb

BBC News - France expels radical Islamists after Merah killings - 0 views

  • President Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking at an election rally in the eastern city of Nancy, said he was sending a very clear message. "All those who make remarks contrary to the values of the Republic will be instantly put outside the territory of the French Republic, there will no exception, there will be no leniency,"
Ed Webb

French police swoop on more suspected Islamists - Yahoo! News - 0 views

  • Some French media had been tipped off about the raids and police did not cordon off the areas ensuring mass coverage.
  • Sarkozy, a former hardline interior minister, has been accused by some opponents of capitalizing on the Islamist threat for electoral purposes even though only 20 percent of voters consider it their main concern, surveys show.
Ed Webb

Debating the War on Women - An FP Roundtable | Foreign Policy - 0 views

  • There is misogyny in the Arab world. But if we want progress for Arab women, we must hack at the roots of evil, not at its branches.
  • what we need are sustained, nationwide campaigns to raise awareness and dissociate religion from repression of women
  • Economic security for women is as essential as political and cultural change
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  • The fact of the matter is that Arab women, throughout the region, are exercising their moral and political agency, but not necessarily in the ways we might expect.
  • The reality is that democracy and liberalism do not necessarily go hand-in-hand, at least not in the Arab world. If anything, the opposite is true. Democracy means that governments need to be responsive to the will of the people. But the will of Arab men, and even Arab women, does not seem to be particularly supportive of the Western conception of gender equality.
  • What if Arabs decide they want to be illiberal?
  • "One of the most problematic assumptions behind quotas is that having more women in parliament somehow represents a de facto gain for women's causes."
  • Quotas, like any top-down solution, fail to address the root of the problem -- that the prevailing culture in the Arab world, for now at least, does not view women the same way that Western cultures do. In other words, getting to gender equality is probably going to take a very long time. The other possibility, and the more likely one, is that Arab societies will decide to go their own way -- a different way -- on women's rights. And they may do so both democratically and with the support and active encouragement of Arab women themselves.
  • Here is where American Muslims become so important. As it has in other countries, Islam as practiced in the United States is taking on many of the cultural norms of American society. American Muslim women drive cars. No one advocates genital mutilation here. Muslim women enjoy the rights and privileges of all American women. These new practices are transforming Islam here and, as with so many other immigrant groups, American Muslims are positively influencing events back in their native countries.
  • they also fear us, as much as our dictators feared us
  • To grasp our strength, we must accept that freedom involves freedom of expression, which is not about right or wrong but rather the right of choice, including the right to choose and use our sexuality.
  • The image of Nekkid Burqa Woman is lazy and insulting. Let's talk lazy first. And by lazy I mean editorially. Illustrations for print stories are meant to illuminate the text, to present a further dimension to the written word. They are not incidental to the item. The image of a naked woman with a painted-on burqa does nothing to illuminate the essay it accompanies. It's trite and boring -- been there, done that. Nekkid Burqa Woman is, in fact, so common that she doesn't even shock or provoke anymore. Her image simply elicits, in the language of the Internet, a "Really, Foreign Policy? Really?" The covered-yet-naked-yet-covered Unknown Brown Woman is all over the place. You can find her on book covers and in movie trailers. You'll see her used in making the case for war and you'll see her used in making the case for jihad.
  • Muslim women are typically presented in two ways in the West: traditional/veiled/subservient or modern/unveiled/autonomous. In the Muslim world, it's the reverse. The best, most free woman is the most covered. Uncovering is for a woman without morals, one who is oppressed by her own desires. In both views, Muslim women are defined by how they (un)dress.
  • The further insult stems from the fact the woman in the picture is inactive. She is simply presented for consumption.
  • And it's not just about Muslim women. The illustration is insulting to women in general. It takes the profound problem of gender-based violence and reduces it to sexual imagery: "Hey, we might be talking about the endemic hatred of one gender for the other but here's a naked painted lady to keep you company!"
Ed Webb

Let's Talk About Sex - 0 views

  • To begin with, it is purportedly about how sex shapes the world’s politics. But with the exception of one article that urges US foreign policy makers to understand women as a foreign policy issue and a target of their “smart-power arsenal,” its focus is almost exclusively on Iran, the Arab world, and China. Thus “the world” is reduced for the most part to Arabs, Iranians, and Chinese—not a coincidental conglomeration of the “enemy.” The current war on women in the United States is erased.
  • A naked and beautiful woman’s flawless body unfolds a niqab of black paint. She stares at us afraid and alluring. We are invited to sexualize and rescue her at once. The images reproduce what Gayatri Spivak critiqued as the masculine and imperial urge to save sexualized (and racialized) others. The photo spread is reminiscent of Theo van Gogh's film Submission, based on Ayyan Hirsli Ali’s writings, in which a woman with verses of the Quran painted on her naked body and wearing a transparent chador writhes around a dimly lit room. Foreign Policy’s “Sex Issue” montage is inspired by the same logic that fuels Submission: we selectively highlight the plight of women in Islam using the naked female body as currency. The female body is to be consumed, not covered!
  • We would suggest, as many have, that oppression is about men and women. The fate of women in the Arab world cannot be extracted from the fate of men in the Arab world, and vice versa. El Tahawy's article conjures an elaborate battle of the sexes where men and women are on opposing teams, rather than understanding that together men and women must fight patriarchal systems in addition to exploitative practices of capitalism, authoritarianism, colonialism, liberalism, religion, and/or secularism.
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  • Indeed, the hatred of the people, women and men, has been a, if not the, unifying characteristic of col
  • Hatred is irrational. It is a state or emotion. As Wendy Brown reminds us, such emotional or affective states are understood to be outside of, or unwelcome in, liberalism.
  • critical thinkers have long argued that this practice has more to do with the lack of economic opportunity for women, the imperative to marry, and the hardening and modernization of tradition in response to colonial and neocolonial interventions (including rights frameworks) than some irrational and razor crazed “hatred.” The same insight could be extended to the question of ages of consent. A reductive framework of hatred makes these topics even more difficult to critically think about and work on.
  • to reflect on why the liberalism that Sha‘rawi and her cohorts fought for—men and women—drastically and resoundingly failed. One reason, and there are many, was that liberalism resonated with only a small elite. As Hanan Kholoussy points out, women under domestic confinement who like Sha‘rawi were expected to don the face veil made up only two percent of Egypt’s five million females at the end of the nineteenth century
  • moderate Islam has often been produced on the wings of women's and minority rights
  • in the Palestinian context, the women’s movement lacked a coherent strategy linking gender equality to democracy. The women’s movement thus appeared to be sponsored by the Palestinian Authority; its fate became dependent on that of the political system
  • Turkey, Algeria, Egypt are situations where you have small women’s movements whose popular legitimacy is lost because over time they have been seen as linked to or sponsored by authoritarian secular regimes.1
  • We respectfully invite El Tahawy to join the conversation among women and men in Tahrir and outside of it. After all, the shameful and state-sanctioned sexual violence of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces’ “virginity tests” did not take place in silence. They happened a day after International Women’s Day when women claimed Tahrir as a space of gender equality and liberation. The “virginity tests” did not meet silence either, as El Tahawy herself points out. Samira Ibrahim continues her fight; her following and her courage are formidable.
  • There is no one answer because there is no single culprit, no single “culture” or “hatred” that we can root out and replace with “tolerance” or “love.” Similarly, the absence of a sustained and critical attention to sex and gender cannot be solved, syllabus style, by a separate glossy special “Sex Issue,” the content and form of which reproduce what it purports to critique.
Ed Webb

Turkey Feels Sway of Fethullah Gulen, a Reclusive Cleric - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • the relationship between Mr. Erdogan and Mr. Gulen has sometimes been tense, with the prime minster, a mercurial and populist leader, sensitive to any challenges to his authority. Analysts say that in recent months Mr. Erdogan and other members of his Justice and Development Party have grown increasingly wary, as high-profile arrests of critics of the Gulen movement have embarrassed the government. There is growing talk of a power struggle.
  • The movement is well known for running a network of schools lauded for their academic rigor and commitment to spreading Turkish language and culture. Gulen followers have been involved in starting one of the largest collections of charter schools in the United States. With their neatly trimmed mustaches, suits and ties, and their missionary zeal, supporters here convey the earnestness of Mormon missionaries or Muslim Peace Corps volunteers. Their eyes moisten at the mention of Mr. Gulen’s name, which is invoked with utmost reverence. Sympathizers say the notion of Mr. Gulen as a cultish puppet master is a malicious caricature. The group consists of an informal network of followers and has no formal organization or official membership, they say. Mr. Gulen communicates in essays and videotaped sermons, which are posted on the Internet and appear in other Gulen-related media outlets. His sympathizers say his goal is the creation of a “golden generation” that would embrace humanism, science and Islam and serve the Turkish state. He has publicly affirmed the importance of complying with Turkey’s secular laws, and mathematics and science competitions at Gulen schools overshadow religious expression, which takes place quietly in “relaxation rooms” that double as prayer spaces.
  • The ascent of Mr. Erdogan’s government since 2002 has radically shifted the balance of power, and analysts say the Gulenists have seized the opportunity to settle old scores and tame their former rivals, including the military.
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  • Mr. Gulen lives in self-imposed exile on a 25-acre haven in the mountains of eastern Pennsylvania. In 1999, he fled Turkey amid accusations of plotting to overthrow the secular government. Around that time, a taped sermon emerged in the media in which Mr. Gulen was heard advising his followers to “move within the arteries of the system, without anyone noticing your existence, until you reach all the power centers.”
  • A 2009 cable by the United States ambassador to Turkey at the time, James F. Jeffrey, made public by WikiLeaks, noted that the Gulen movement was strong within the police force and in conflict with the military. It said that the assertion that the Turkish national police is controlled by Gulenists “is impossible to confirm, but we have found no one who disputes it.”
Ed Webb

Open door: The politics of naming places and people | Chris Elliott | Comment is free |... - 0 views

  • We are currently looking at the way we use 'Islamist' and whether that use is now outdated
    • Ed Webb
       
      Er ... no. This is a useful term, widely used and understood by students of religion & politics.
Ed Webb

U.S. Military Taught Officers: Use 'Hiroshima' Tactics for 'Total War' on Islam | Dange... - 0 views

  • The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently ordered the entire U.S. military to scour its training material to make sure it doesn’t contain similarly hateful material, a process that is still ongoing. But the officer who delivered the lectures, Army Lt. Col. Matthew A. Dooley, still maintains his position at the Norfolk, Virginia college, pending an investigation. The commanders, lieutenant colonels, captains and colonels who sat in Dooley’s classroom, listening to the inflammatory material week after week, have now moved into higher-level assignments throughout the U.S. military.
  • In his course, Dooley brought in these anti-Muslim demagogues as guest lecturers. And he took their argument to its final, ugly conclusion.
  • International laws protecting civilians in wartime are “no longer relevant,” Dooley continues. And that opens the possibility of applying “the historical precedents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki” to Islam’s holiest cities, and bringing about “Mecca and Medina['s] destruction.”
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  • In his reference material for the Joint Forces Staff College class, Guandolo not only spoke of today’s Muslims as enemies of the West. He even justified the Crusades, writing that they “were initiated after hundreds of years of Muslim incursion into Western lands.”
  • Dooley, who has worked at the Joint Forces Staff College since August 2010, began his eight-week class with a straightforward, two-part history of Islam. It was delivered by David Fatua, a former West Point history professor. “Unfortunately, if we left it at that, you wouldn’t have the proper balance of points of view, nor would you have an accurate view of how Islam defines itself,” Dooley told his students. Over the next few weeks, he invited in a trio of guest lecturers famous for their incendiary views of Islam.
  • only a few of al-Qaida’s most twisted fanatics were ever caught musing about wiping out entire cities
  • A web link, titled “Watch Before This Is Pulled,” supposedly shows President Obama — the commander-in-chief of the senior officers attending the course — admitting that he’s a Muslim. Dooley added the caveats that his views are “not the Official Policy of the United States Government” and are intended “to generate dynamic discussion and thought.” But he taught his fellow military officers that Obama’s alleged admission could well make the commander in chief some sort of traitor. “By conservative estimates,” 10 percent of the world’s Muslims, “a staggering 140 million people … hate everything you stand for and will never coexist with you, unless you submit” to Islam. He added, “Your oath as a professional soldier forces you to pick a side here.” It is unclear if Dooley’s “total war” on Muslims also applied to his “Muslim” commander in chief.
  • Ironically, Dooley and his guest lecturers paint a dire picture of the forward march of Islamic extremism right as its foremost practitioner feared its implosion. Documents recently declassified by the U.S. government revealed Osama bin Laden fretting about al-Qaida’s brutal methods and damaged brand alienating the vast majority of Muslims from choosing to wage holy war. Little could he have known that U.S. military officers were thinking of ways to ignite one
Ed Webb

Ministry of Women's Affairs Bans Niqab from Children's Public Institutions : Tunisia Live - 0 views

  • The ministry stressed that educators should refrain from disseminating any particular ideologies, and strongly advised that singing, acting, and painting – as well as other activities that in recent instances had been labeled by educators as “forbidden” – be avoided, as well.
  • “We must abide by the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which bans any sort of ideological persuasion [when teaching], whether political or religious. We have international commitments to provide favorable learning conditions, and we should abide by them,”
Ed Webb

Turkey urges Egypt not to fear secularism - 0 views

  • “What is unfortunate for the Arab and Maghreb countries is that their interpretation of secularism has been based on the French model, which is a “Jacobin” model of imposing a kind of irreligiousness,”
  • Erdoğan spoke about secularism in Egypt in September last year during his landmark visit, saying Turkey prefers a model of secularism that is not identical to the “Anglo-Saxon or Western model,” without elaborating. “Individuals cannot be secular, states are. A devout Muslim can successfully govern a secular state,”
  • Gül said in the interview that in practice, the implementation of secularism in the Arab and Maghreb countries has meant fighting against Islam in the name of secularism.
Ed Webb

Egyptian Judge Speaks Against Islamist Victory Before Presidential Runoff - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • The president of the association of Egyptian judges said Thursday that they were abandoning their neutrality toward the coming presidential runoff in an effort to guard against an Islamist monopoly of power.
  • if the group’s members had known Islamists would win most of the seats in Parliament after elections that ended in January, they would not have supervised the voting
  • now Egypt is falling. We won’t leave matters for those who can’t manage them, with the excuse that we’re not people of politics. No, we are people of politics.
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  • the effect of Judge Zend’s appearance was a public pitch for the presidential campaign of Ahmed Shafik, the last prime minister under Mr. Mubarak, who is now squaring off against the Brotherhood’s nominee, Mohamed Morsi
  • Judge Zend appears to be giving voice to a panic that has seized much of Egypt’s old elite about the prospect of a president from the Brotherhood, demonized under Mr. Mubarak despite its 25-year record of moderation as a minority bloc in Parliament
  • “I think it is a message more or less justifying a crackdown,” said Omar Ashour, an Egyptian professor of political science at the University of Exeter, in England, who is now in Cairo. “At minimum it is a smear attempt days before the election, to try to scare voters who might be leaning toward the Muslim Brotherhood.”
  • Mr. Shafik, for his part, praised Judge Zend for his “important news conference.” But he also urged the judges not to sit out the runoff in order to avoid confusion that might lead to an Islamist victory, “for the sake of protecting Egypt from the disintegration, disorder and chaos the rogues want for the country.”
  • the chorus of alarms rising from the political establishment, including both officials of the Mubarak government and the liberals it tolerated. Many say they are still more afraid of the Brotherhood than Mr. Shafik, the former prime minister, despite his deep ties to Mr. Mubarak and reputation as a strongman
  • Osama el-Ghazali-Harb, the leader of the Democratic Front Party and one of the most credible liberal voices tolerated under Mr. Mubarak, published a column in the flagship state newspaper, Al Ahram, endorsing Mr. Shafik
  • on Thursday, Al Ahram published a column by a retired general, Hussam Seilam, arguing that if the Brotherhood came to power, Egypt would resemble Iran. “God forbid, the world will treat Egypt as a terrorist state,” he wrote
Ed Webb

Saudi Arabia, My Changing Home - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • We do indeed live in a gender-segregated society. But affluent and educated Saudis who follow international news often find it difficult to accept a viewpoint that portrays their family members as subjugated and oppressed. Many Saudis, for example, regard the requirement that their mothers, wives and sisters obtain permission slips to leave the country or pursue higher education as nothing but a minor inconvenience. It’s also hard for many well-off people here to wrap their minds around the fact that there are actually women who might not be content to live in a country whose legal system still permits an 80-year-old man to marry an 11-year-old girl or can force a happily married couple to divorce if religious courts accept a family member’s claim that the husband comes from a lower-status tribe. Many Saudis believe that the outside world has some ulterior motive for criticizing their country. There were times in school when I was told that “infidels” take a hypocritical stance on justice and human rights out of spite, to sully Muslim women and denigrate Islam.
  • Growing up in the Midwest Bible-belt during the 1980s, my family and I were sometimes treated like the enemy
  • some Saudi parents would not let their daughters play with me because they thought I might teach them how to be “Westernized.” My American-accented Arabic put off some classmates and even some teachers. Those who taught religion were particularly suspicious, often checking whether I would say noon-day prayers
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  • the outside world has only started being accessible to the average citizen with the introduction of satellite TV in the 1990s. Exposure increased with the accessibility of the Internet in the past decade. Saudis are now able to see the rest of the world for themselves rather than accept the distorted version depicted by our religious establishment.
  • as the world grows smaller and more Saudis are communicating on a personal level with others across borders, cultures, religions and languages, stereotypes we’ve been taught — and the stereotypes outsiders have of us — are being torn down
  • Eman Al Nafjan is the author of the Saudiwoman’s Weblog (saudiwoman.me), a blog on Saudi society, culture, women and human rights issues
Ed Webb

Arab world survey shows different attitudes to religion and public life - english.ahram... - 0 views

  • The surveys were conducted in 2010 and 2011, and the results were published and distributed during the conference. On the first day of the two-day scholarly gathering, the Arab Democracy Barometer tackled issues related to clerical interference in government decisions in nine states (Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco, Yemen, Kuwait, Algeria, Tunisia and Sudan.) The survey conducted in Yemen and Sudan showed a significant increase in support for such interference, while it was opposed in Algeria and Tunisia, which reiterated the study's findings that in those two countries, a high importance is attached to separating religion from political life. Samples from Egypt and Iraq also agreed with this perspective.
  • two out of every eight citizens support the intervention of Islam in politics and society. This percentage increases in conservative communities with lower rates of education
Ed Webb

Thug violence vs. Salafist violence - do definitions really matter? | Kefteji - 0 views

  • The government has said that it will take steps to control violent movements on many occasions, but oftentimes this has felt like lip-service. While a planned secular protest against violence was called off by the interior ministry, a jihadist one was allowed. The government ordered the art gallery in La Marsa to be closed after last week’s events but  had allowed an illegal sit-in by conservatives to go on for almost three months at the state television station. A conflict at the Manouba university over niqabs has been left to fester for an entire academic year because the government has decided not to intervene – leaving the university to solve the problem.
  • When a preacher at Zitouna mosque, an important mosque and center of Islamic theology called on the assasination of the artists responsible for the offending artwork, the Ministry of Religious Affairs called for his sacking. Yet just today reports have said that the preacher will not in fact be sacked. The government has yet to release a clear statement on the matter.
  • While physical violence has been rare, and the country remains comparatively safe, an environment of threats of violence has been left to fester while the intimidation has been met with little challenge from the state, and sometimes denial of well-documented events.
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  • an intellectual space has been opened in Tunisia for those hoping to instill their conservative values on society. This space allows sexist thugs to harass women, violent gangs to team up with religious extremists, and preachers to foster hatred among their followers – no matter whether their theological beliefs correspond to one of the many Salafist worldviews
  • I appreciate the efforts of those who have called out the press for their wanton use of the term Salafist. The use of specific theological terminology for a heterogeneous group does little to clarify the situation. Nevertheless, in order to be intellectually honest, one must also admit that extremist violence is not always committed by extremists. Where hateful ideas are allowed to fester (and sometimes encouraged), hateful actions will follow – regardless of the actors’ beliefs.
Ed Webb

Tunisian Ministry of Religious Affairs to Increase Control of Mosque Activites : Tunisi... - 0 views

  • There are four different positions in Tunisian mosques assigned by the ministry: a daily prayer imam, a Friday imam, a person to perform the call to prayer, and someone who maintains the building
  • some parties have attempted to assign imams affiliated with their parties in order to influence masses. “Our ministry chose to remain silent over such issues in the beginning. Now we are taking a more strict approach,” he added. The ministry will closely monitor sermons at mosques and will be swift and fair in their punishment of offenders, he said.
Ed Webb

A Dangerous Mind? - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • As a political scientist specializing in Islamic law and war, I frequently read, store, share and translate texts and videos by jihadi groups. As a political philosopher, I debate the ethics of killing. As a citizen, I express views, thoughts and emotions about killing to other citizens. As a human being, I sometimes feel joy (I am ashamed to admit) at the suffering of some humans and anger at the suffering of others. At Mr. Mehanna’s trial, I saw how those same actions can constitute federal crimes.
  • having the intent to support a foreign terrorist organization
  • MR. MEHANNA’S crimes were speech crimes, even thought crimes. The kinds of speech that the government successfully criminalized were not about coordinating acts of terror or giving directions on how to carry out violent acts. The speech for which Mr. Mehanna was convicted involved the religious and political advocacy of certain causes beyond American shores
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  • the government’s case rested primarily on Mr. Mehanna’s intent in saying the things he said — his political and religious thoughts, feelings and viewpoints
  • The centerpiece of the government’s case against Mr. Mehanna’s speech activities was a translation of a text titled “39 Ways to Serve and Participate in Jihad.” The government described this text, written by a late pro-jihad Saudi religious scholar, as a “training manual for terrorism.” It is nothing of the sort. It is a fairly routine exercise of Islamic jurisprudence explaining to pious Muslims how they can discharge what many of them believe to be a duty to contribute to wars of self-defense. This text does explain that in Islamic law a Muslim may “go for jihad” or “collect funds for the mujahidin.” But it also explains that, in place of fighting or sending money, a Muslim can assuage his conscience and take care of widows and children, praise fighters, pray for fighters, become physically fit, learn first aid, learn the Islamic rules of war, have feelings of enmity for one’s enemies, spread news about captives and abandon luxury. The act of translating this text is far from incitement to violent action. The text in fact shows Muslims numerous ways to help fellow Muslims suffering in their own lands, without engaging in violence. Instead of this common-sense reading, however, the government did something extraordinary. It used this text of Islamic law to help define for us what should count as a violation of our own material support law. Everything Mr. Mehanna did, from hiking to praying, was given a number in the indictment based on this text as an act of material support for jihad. For example, his online discussion with a friend about working out and exercising should, in the government’s words, be “placed next to the directives in 39 Ways (Step 25: ‘Become Physically Fit’).” Federal prosecutors, in effect, used a Saudi religious scholar to tell us what our “material support” statute means.
  • The Mehanna prosecution is a frightening and unnecessary attempt to expand the kinds of religious and political speech that the government can criminalize
Ed Webb

Accused of Slapping a Niqab-Wearing Student, Dean of Manouba University Has Trial Postp... - 0 views

  • Faycel Zammi, one of Kazdaghli’s lawyers and a member of the Modern Left party, declared that this case is more serious than the Persepolis trial
Ed Webb

Clashes Erupt in Sfax Mosque : Tunisia Live - 0 views

  •  
    NB Islamophobic comments
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