In an open letter that Iranian Canadian human rights activist Shabnam Assadollahi sent to Ottawa’s Mayor Jim Watson, Assadollahi expressed her concern that the feminist group City for All Women Initiative in Canada decided to host an Ottawa Hijab Day inside the City Hall building on February 17, 2016.
In addition, they want a National Hijab Day on February 25, 2016. According to her, hosting a Hijab Day inside a City Hall building amounts to the “acceptance of a legal system that is contrary to our democratic values and human rights.” She believes that endorsing the Hijab as legally mandated in many Islamic countries amounts to “a tolerance for an extremist ideology that condones honor killings, female genital mutilation and the treatment of women in a way that is incompatible with our Canadian values.”
Assadollahi stressed that she is not anti-Muslim: “I am a well-educated patriotic Canadian who is a strong proponent of diversity and freedom of religion. But I do have serious concerns about extremist Islamist ideology that runs counter to the Canadian values that I hold dear. I have known and liked many Muslims, who share my Canadian values. They or their parents immigrated here in order to escape Sharia Law and to embrace Canadian values. Unfortunately, not all Muslims who immigrate here do so for those reasons.”
According to Assadollahi, Islam, unlike Christianity, has a political component: “As a politician, you are likely to have listened to presentations by political groups affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood such as the National Council of Canadian Muslims, the Muslim Students Association and many more, whose goal is to present Islamist ideology in a favorable light for example by saying that the hijab is just a sign of modesty that is worn voluntarily by Muslim women. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth. In fact, the hijab is a symbol of adherence to an extremist Islamist ideology and in Muslim countries, women who wear it do not do so freely.”
Assadollahi emphasized that both the hijab and the niqab are not part of traditional Muslim dress, emphasizing that in the past women in countries ranging from Syria to Iraq to Iran to the United Arab Emirates to Pakistan and Afghanistan used to wear far more liberal traditional clothing before the rise of radical Islam in the region: “They are relatively recent adaptations which are the result of Saudi Arabia having exported its extremist Wahhabist branch of Islam around the world. Along with the clothing comes the extremist ideas.” She noted that the Salafists in Canada argue for wearing the hijab not because it is a sign of modesty but because it isn’t compatible with integrating into Canadian society.
In order to prove that the hijab is not voluntary, Assadollahi mentioned the case of Aqsa Parvez, a Toronto-based teenage girl who was strangled by her father and brother for not wearing a hijab: “You will also remember no doubt the horrific case of the Montreal Shafia family honor killings of 3 daughters and a second wife by the father/husband and the brother because they did not adhere to his extremist ideology but instead adopted Canadian families. These Muslim women were Canadian citizens and their killings were not only criminal; they were motivated by beliefs that are contrary to the values of the equality of women and human rights.”
Assadollahi called upon Ottawa’s Mayor to permit the CAWI to host their Hijab Day as a privately sponsored event but stressed that they should not be allowed to call it Ottawa Hijab Day as “this gives the incorrect impression that it has been officially proclaimed by the City of Ottawa. In the future, events which encourage non-Muslim women to try on or wear the hijab may not be held at the City Hall.” She told Mayor Watson that he can explain it as follows: “Wear the Hijab events are a sensitive issue and do not necessarily achieve the aim of increasing inter-cultural understanding. Some women feel wearing the hijab is their choice while others see it as a religious obligation; still others see it as cultural but not religious. Some feel strongly about the many Muslim women including Canadian women who have been killed for not wearing the hijab and thus believe that to celebrate the wearing of the hijab would do them a disservice. Others view ‘Wearing the Hijab Days’ as a form of proselytizing.”
In conclusion, Assadollahi wrote: “I hope you will think very carefully about the message that Ottawa Hijab Day sends to Canadians and the international community, particularly to those women who do not have a choice, who may be trying to escape a life of oppression circumscribed by religious extremism, where their human rights are violated and possibly even their lives are at risk. Ottawa should be known as a city that promotes freedom of religion and equality of men and women. Allowing a private group to advertise Ottawa Hijab Day and to hold an associated event at City Hall may do damage to the city’s reputation by appearing in favor of one religion over others by being seen to promote the wearing of a controversial item of clothing such as the hijab, which is associated in many countries with an extremist ideology that devalues women and curtails their human rights. Such events are better held at a mosque without the assistance of public money, either directly or indirectly.”
In a separate Facebook post, Shabnam Assadollahi called upon all men who support women’s rights in the Muslim world “to show their solidarity with women and girls who are oppressed, flogged, beheaded, stoned to death, burned alive, beaten by their husbands, brothers and parents to name a few due to the forceful wearing of the hijab” to put on hijabs themselves. She stressed: “In my opinion, this event disrespects Muslim women who chose to wear the hijab and at the same time, it’s against our values on the status of women, which should not be supported by Canada and especially the City of Ottawa.”
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By Tarek Fatah, February 23, 2016
While liberal Muslim women around the world are fighting against Islamists, both on the battlefield like the Kurds, and on the ideological front, like Sun Media columnist Farzana Hassan, many feminists in Canada and the West are backing their enemies by saluting the symbols of the Islamist cult.
This Thursday, the City of Ottawa will be holding a public event celebrating the Islamist Hijab; an article of cloth that many Muslim women consider akin to the medieval chastity belt.
To understand the phenomenon of the Hijab, which has nothing to do with Islam, other than men’s desires to shackle women, one has to go back to Iran in 1979.
Hengameh Golestan was in her 20s when the Islamists stole the Iranian Revolution and imposed their never-ending era of oppression over the people of Iran, especially women.
On March 7, 1979 the Islamic Republic declared that henceforth all Iranian women would not be allowed to step outside their homes if they did not have their heads covered by a chador (a black, blanket-like shawl) or a Hijab.
Many Iranians first thought of this decree as a joke, but when it became clear the ayatollahs meant business and would imprison any woman found “naked” with her head not wrapped in cloth, there were spontaneous protests across the country.
The next day, Golestan joined many people in Tehran who went on strike and took to the streets.
Recalling that day 35 years later, she told the UK Guardian newspaper last year:
“It was a huge demonstration with women – and men – from all professions there, students, doctors, lawyers. We were fighting for freedom: political and religious, but also individual.”
But that march turned out to be the last day women walked the streets of Tehran without their heads covered.
Said Golestan: “It was our first disappointment with the new post-revolution rulers of Iran.”
The Hijab had come to stay, and over the years spread its tentacles across the globe as a political statement, hated by many Iranian women, but loved by Islamist followers of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood and Pakistan’s Jamat-e-Islami in North America.
This Friday, Iranians will go to the polls to elect a new parliament.
Not up for discussion or a vote in this election is the oppressive Hijab that many Iranian Muslim women have been fighting against, risking arrest — and even lashings.
If it were, few doubt the law of the Hijab would die an instant death. But no opponent of the Hijab is permitted to stand for election.
With the advent of social media, however, the fight against the Hijab has taken a new form.
Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad created a Facebook page “My Stealthy Freedom” where thousands of Iranian women are posting videos and pictures of themselves, without the mandatory head covering.
The page has garnered more than 750,000 likes and has drawn the ire of the Iranian government.
But while Masih Alinejad and Hengameh Golestan fight the good fight, many of their sisters in Ottawa have decided to be on the side of the ayatollahs.
The Sun’s Farzana Hassan expressed her frustration in a sarcastic message to the organizers of the Ottawa “Hijab Solidarity Day” celebration.
As she put it: “Why don’t you girls just hand over Canada to the Taliban so we can get over with the formalities and go back to more self flagellation? That would surely please the Mullahs of Iran and Saudi Arabia as well.”
Source: http://www.torontosun.com/2016/02/23/why-is-ottawa-honouring-the-hijab
Categories: America, Americas, Canada, The Muslim Times