Category Archives: Issues

Dear Mushie: Shut up. Sincerely, Pakistan’s Women

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stop it.jpg The walking P.R. disaster who is PakistanÂ’s president canÂ’t get a break. Nor should he, since he is a dick AND a weasel. I hate to throw two slang references to the male anatomy in the same paragraph, but damn Gina…if youÂ’re going to front like youÂ’re cold-blooded, have the balls to follow through with that unwise approach. Pervez, denying that you made a heartless comment which the entire world heard is only soiling the bed you made and have to lie in…no pun intended.

Care for some background, in case you’re just joining us?

Almost two weeks ago, I posted that the clue-free President of Pakistan was staying at the Roosevelt Hotel in NYC and that a protest was planned outside of it, to shame Mushie into owning his countryÂ’s pathetic approach to human rights for women. Later, I blogged about his sputtering reaction to the vocal horde outside his temporary Manhattan quarters.

As the human rights and women groups protested outside the Roosevelt Hotel against the treatment of rape victims in Pakistan, Gen Musharraf said that such protests should be held in and not outside Pakistan.[link]

Well, today he got his wish. Continue reading →

The only good woman is a dead one.

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votecorpse06.jpg When I commenced grad school at GW, new-to-DC-me spent a lot of time in “J street”, a food court so egregiously expensive and depressingly mediocre, I have NEVER complained about airport food since. One night, while gagging down waffle fries from Chik-fil-a, I was yanked away from my deep-fried poo by a popular Bangladeshi kid whom Sajit probably remembers. 😀

“Come on, come with me, RIGHT now!”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, but I need your help!”

Intrigued, I closed my textbooks and followed him, chucking Chik-fil-ewww on the way. Within minutes I was somewhere I had never been, looking at super hot boys in soccer togs.

“What is this?”

“IM soccer. You’re on our team.”

I chortled, but he was serious. Since he was heading a co-ed team, he needed a certain number of women on the floor and they were one short. Never mind that at that point in my life, I was more of a futbol spectator than a participant, I was suddenly a player. They told me to just stand there, so that they wouldn’t have to forfeit. I stayed in my corner while the footie fiends whom I had befriended kept the ball far away from me. Their efforts were wasted; the other team destroyed them.

I’ll say this much for my friend– at least he used a “live” woman to achieve his ends.

:+: Continue reading →

Without fear of reprisal

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Two years ago Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York issued Executive Order 41.  This order was issued…

to ensure that immigrants, and other New Yorkers, can access City services that they need and are entitled to receive. The policy protects areas of confidentiality, such as immigration status, sexual orientation, status as a victim of domestic violence, status as a crime witness, receipt of public assistance, and information in income tax records.

The New York Times reports on how that order, which “essentially codified a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy for city workers,” (obviously including those of South Asian heritage) is now being tested:

Waheed Saleh says he was smoking a cigarette outside a doughnut shop at the rough edge of Riverdale in the Bronx when a police officer handed him a summons for disorderly conduct. He protested, he says, and the officer yelled at him to go back to his own country.

Mr. Saleh, a Palestinian, worked as a gypsy-cab driver illegally seeking fares and was used to tickets for infractions like double parking, making U-turns and picking up passengers. But he believed that this officer, Kishon Hickman, was harassing him. So he complained to the Civilian Complaint Review Board, which examines complaints against police officers.

Before he heard back from the board, however, he heard from federal immigration authorities. About a year later, outside the same doughnut shop on the night of Dec. 20, 2004, he was confronted by a federal immigration agent and local police officers. The police took him into custody on administrative immigration violations, sending him into deportation proceedings. Mr. Saleh believes it was retaliation for his civilian review board complaint.

What complicates this case is that there is a possible loophole:

There are exceptions written into Executive Order 41: Illegal immigrants suspected of criminal activity or terrorism are not protected. Paul J. Browne, a police spokesman, said that Mr. Saleh’s host of summonses amounted to illegal activity, just as a single parking ticket would.

In an interview at a diner near the same doughnut shop, Mr. Saleh said he left his hometown of Jenin, on the West Bank, after his wife died of brain cancer, to find a better way to support his two young children, who stayed behind with his parents.

He arrived in November 2000 on a visitor’s visa, got a valid driver’s license and stayed on illegally to work at gas stations in Rockland County and as a landscaper in Yonkers. But after 9/11, he said, it became much harder to get work without a Social Security card, and he joined other Arabic men driving gypsy cabs.

Continue reading →

Asking for help isn’t easy

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The Pacific News Service spotlights the stories of some foreign South Asian students who are coping with the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.  Specifically the story focuses on their fears of being deported if they are unable to stay enrolled in a school that has been knocked out of commission, or if they seek out help from FEMA in these post-9/11 times:

“We’re homeless. We cannot work off campus. We are in a bad situation. Everyone is trying to survive. We are moving from place to place.”

Tulane University student Azad, who wouldn’t give his last name lest “I get into trouble,” was not just mouthing off. He meant every word of what he said, and what he said was an echo of what a number of other immigrant students from the Indian sub-continent were saying in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

The hurricane that hit the Gulf Coast earlier this month turned Azad’s life upside down, along with everyone else’s. Only, in the case of immigrant students like Azad, especially those from predominantly Muslim countries like his, many are wondering whether to seek help from federal agencies, or just lie low and continue banking on the uncertain help of friends and acquaintances.

“The fear they are experiencing is understandable,” Artesia, Calif.,-based South Asian Network’s executive director Hamid Khan told India-West. “It’s because of how South Asians, and particularly how Muslim students have been demonized” in the wake of 9/11. “Students with Muslim names face a higher degree of scrutiny. That’s why even in times of need they are afraid to reach out so that they don’t show up on the radar screen.”

This is when you often hear the oversimplified advice, “well if you’ve done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear.”  That advice doesn’t mean much to these students who, because of the fear of getting caught in the system, would rather keep their heads down even if it means enduring hardship.  The U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement office announced last week that it was temporarily lifting the restriction that binds a student visa holder to a particular institution.

Continue reading →

Back to the Dunce Corner

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The internets were alive this morning with the news that Sri Lanka was about to drop its age of consent from 16 to 13 (thanks Enivhsay): sepiagirlstanding1.jpg

government spokesman Nimal Siripala de Silva, who is also the minister of health, told a weekly Cabinet briefing on Friday that the government was planning to lower the age of consent. He gave no reason, but said the proposal was approved “after much debate and a long review.” [link]

Ah, yes. Debate and review. Ve have heard the words, but the meaning is escaping us still. However, in a startling turnaround of events:

The government reversed its decision after a flurry of telephone calls from incensed citizens following the announcement, The Sunday Island newspaper said.

“There is no proposal, whatsoever, to reduce that to 13 or to any other age,” it quoted Dhara Wijayatillake, a secretary in the Ministry of Justice, as saying Saturday. [link]

Que rapido!! When did the Sri Lankan government start pay attention to “incensed citizens”? Did I miss something important during my time here in Amrika?

The Minister [Justice Minister John Senevirathne] said that the government is concerned of the increased number of young men detained in remand prisons as a result of sexual encounters with their girlfriends.

He said: “Many girls are requesting to release them saying the encounter happened with their consent.” [link]

Holy Mammajamma! I’ve missed so much!! Here I was, happily warbling away my speculative fantasies that Sri Lanka may be one of the more progressive South Asian countries…but this much? When I was a wee kella (er, ladki. Indocentric, what?) sex did not exist, no one had ever heard of it, and even if those damn suddhas (goras) couldn’t keep in in their pants, that was still no reason why we Sri lankans couldn’t quietly continue asexually budding. Encounter, bencounter! Sekshuval is a vestern invention, no?

So vat the bluddy hell is going on? Continue reading →

Mushie loses it.

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Mushie better recognize.jpg On Friday, I posted about a coalition of activists who were planning on calling out Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf by protesting in front of his Manhattan hotel yesterday. Did any of our New York-area mutineers attend? If you did, tell us what you saw– it sounds like it was pure DRAMA (Thanks, Manish):

Pandemonium broke out at a meeting organized to promote Pakistan’s soft image when after a confrontation with human rights activists an irate President Pervez Musharraf declared that those who opposed his policies were the enemies of Pakistan. [link]
You are against me and Pakistan, said the president when a human rights activist referred to his alleged comments in a Washington Post interview which quoted him (Gen Musharraf) as saying that women exploited rape to get visas.[link]

Wow. Way to keep your cool, there Sir.

CNN has more about how Mushie backpedals furiously:

“I am not that stupid to say that kind of thing,” he said. “I know that rape is happening in Pakistan. I know there is violence against women.”
But, he said, “I am supportive of all women, all actions to emancipate the women, against violence against women, and gender equality,” and he said his government has done more for women than any in the past 50 years.
“I have protected them, I have provided finances, I have provided them judicial support.”

He’s provided judicial support to women but he can’t provide his own open ears. More from Dawn:

Provoked by a single question, the president allowed an event held to promote his government’s pro-women policies to degenerate into a bout between himself and part of the invited audience.[link]

I’m scared of you, General Musharraf:

I am a fighter, I will fight you. I do not give up and if you can shout, I can shout louder, said Gen Musharraf.[link]

He’ll especially shout louder if you cite the wrong sources. How Professor-y! Also, if you have something to say, say it to his FACE…when he’s in Pakistan. Continue reading →

Those legs are weapons of mass distraction, apparently.

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lose the socks, please.jpg Don’t these people have anything better to do with their time than pick on a teenager?

Police will provide a huge security detail for Indian tennis star Sania Mirza during a world tennis tournament in Calcutta next week.
The heavy security follows rumours that a radical Islamic group threatened to stop her playing in the tournament unless she changed her on-court dress.

Awesome. Let’s harass one of the few decent athletes India has, it’s a fantastic way to thank her for reaching the fourth round of the US Open.

The radical Islamic group in question is the Jamiat-e-Islami, they claim they haven’t threatened her at all.

“These are rumours, we have not threatened to stop Sania or anybody else from playing,” he said.
“Though it is true that the kind of dress Sania wears offends us – we don’t expect a Muslim girl to wear such skimpy clothes in public.”

Look. If you want to be offended by something Sania wears while playing tennis, go after what’s REALLY outrageous– those horrid black socks she likes. Priorities, people!

Understandably, Sania’s safety is important to the authorities who are taking all threats very seriously.

“We cannot take a chance with the security of someone like Sania,” Calcutta’s additional police commissioner Gautam Chakrabarty said.
“We have deployed the best of our women police, nearly a hundred of them, to guard her both on and off the court and we have made special arrangements to frisk all spectators attending the tournament,” he said.

What does sweeeet Sania have to say about all this nonsense?

Sania Mirza has refused to be drawn into the controversy, merely asking forgiveness “for whatever I have to do on court as an 18-year-old.”

She didn’t write something irreverent about the Prophet Muhammad. She didn’t molest a mullah. She doesn’t have strange hair and a penchant for criticizing Islam. Don’t get it twizzy– she is not the enemy. Continue reading →

Food for Ogling, er, I mean, Thought

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I believe I lead a call for more sexy sepia men on the Mutiny, but now that a reader sent in some pics, (thanks Ananya) I’m not sure what to think. (mental note: research loopholes and plausible deniability) sepiaPETAchili.jpg

Over on the right, we have John Abraham, the 6’1″, half-Keralite/half-Parsi, 1999 winner of Gladrags Manhunt India. Let me hasten to add that he’s now fast becoming an established Ahctor with roles in Dhoom, Water, Viruddh and the soon-to-be released Baabul, among others. The last two with none other than the Daddy-O of Hindi cinema, his excellency Amitabh Bachchan.

As an avowed vegetarian, Abraham recently posed for a PETA India campaign to release caged birds, (see the sexy results below), but it’s this latest poster promoting vegetarianism that caught our tipster’s eye. “Abraham appears dressed in green onions, chilies and what looks like green peas,” s/he succinctly writes. Am I the only one rather turned off by this pic? I dunno, but a scallion grass skirt covering a man’s tender parts entirely makes me lose my appetite. For anything. And what’s with that highly ridiculous crown of chilies? Is this a pun on hotness?

“I’m against cruelty of any kind. That’s why I’m associated with PETA and work against cruelty to animals. Though I’m not the moral police, I’d like people to be considerate to other living beings,” he says. [link]

Sure, sure, but what about cruelty to men, eh? I think forcing a man to wear vegetables surely counts in that category. Continue reading →

D.C.’s Firemen want their Facial Hair

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To beard or not to beard, that is the question:

A group of D.C. firefighters in jeopardy of losing their jobs for refusing to shave their beards are suing the department for violating their right to religious liberty.
Just last month a federal judge ordered the department to allow three firefighters who wear long beards for religious reasons to continue working, as long as their masks fit properly, despite a department policy prohibiting facial hair.

Apparently THOSE three are fine, but the fire department didn’t extend such tolerance towards other firefighters in a similarly furry predicament. The ACLU was called:

“Disdaining this court’s action, the fire chief has announced that he will now proceed to discipline and discharge all other members of the department who wear beards, no matter how sincere their religious reasons for doing so,” ACLU attorney Arthur B. Spitzer wrote in the complaint filed last week in Washington’s U.S. District Court.

I’m most intrigued by the last group mentioned in this list:

In this case, two of the plaintiffs are Muslim, two Nazarite, one Jewish and a sixth adheres to a strict Caribbean spiritual heritage that does not permit shaving.

Continue reading →

Diplomatic finesse

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What happens when you never have to face an election: you lose your gaffe inhibitor (via Arzan):

‘… if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped’

— Musharraf

“You must understand the environment in Pakistan,” Musharraf added. “This has become a moneymaking concern. A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped.” [Link]

Because Mukhtar Mai represents the millions of high-rollin’, Canada-based gang rape queens. Why, I hear the villagers do it for fun these days:

  1. Get gang-raped in the morning
  2. Fax a press release in the afternoon
  3. Profit!

It’s par for course in a legal system which not only does not take crimes against women seriously, it re-victimizes them for their loss of ‘purity.’ But don’t you dare try to fix anything if you live in Pakistan — it may offend Musharraf’s pride. He closes with this chest-thumping chaser:

“Leave the developing world aside; I think we are better than all of them,” Musharraf declared. “Bring the developed world and let us compare Pakistan’s record, under me, a uniformed man, with many of the developed countries. I challenge that we will be better off.” [Link]

Manmohan Singh just met with Musharraf in NYC Tuesday night. One wonders whether Singh had to speak in the grunts and howls of a silverback male.

More at Reality Cafe.

Update: The WaPo has it on tape (via Arzan). Listen here.

Continue reading →