Where Are the Marches Against the Islamic State? – Yasmine Bahrani
(dailyalert.org, Sept. 5, 2014)
This summer, many Muslims marched in the streets of London, Paris and other cities to condemn the deaths of Gazans. But, inexplicably, there have been no similarly large-scale demonstrations against the Islamic State for its horrific acts against Christians, Yazidis and even its fellow Muslims in Iraq and Syria. And there certainly haven’t been any marches protesting the beheading of innocents. Why is it so hard to take a stand against the killing of women and children? We need the world to see anti-Islamic State marchers taking to the streets with the passion that we saw at the Gaza rallies in London and Paris.
Today, say the word “Islam” and few think of the glories of our history and culture. Rather, they picture masked men with knives. As long as our condemnations remain tepid, we give the impression that we accept the crimes of murderers whose savvy YouTube productions reach far and wide. Groups of people are car-bombing, shooting, starving, kidnapping and beheading people in the name of Islam – not to mention blowing up churches and mosques. Where is the anger? Is it possible that Muslims hate Israel more than we hate criminal gangs who have hijacked the narrative of our religion? The writer is a professor of journalism at American University in Dubai. (Washington Post)
See also ISIS’s Cruelty Toward Women Gets Scant Attention – Haleh Esfandiari
ISIS fighters are “rewarded” by being allowed to have their way with captured women. To the men of ISIS, women are an inferior race, to be enjoyed for sex and be discarded, or to be sold off as slaves. From ISIS-captured territory in Syria, we saw a photograph of a line of women, covered from head to toe and tied to one another by a rope, as they were being led to a makeshift slave market. Little girls were married off to men many times their age. Although Islam requires that marriages be based on consent, consent does not appear to exist in the lexicon of ISIS fighters. Why are there are no demonstrations in Western and Muslim societies against this barbaric onslaught on women and girls? The writer, who directs the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, was held in solitary confinement in Evin Prison in Tehran for 105 days in 2007.(Wall Street Journal)