Death Of Mahsa Amini: How Governments Are Denying Women’s Right To Choice?

Millions of Muslim women proudly wear Hijaab as a symbol of their religion. What makes them different from those protesting against obligatory hijab in Iran is the women’s right to choose.

But when you widen your horizon, you’ll realize that the dilemma of women’s right to choose is apparent across borders. Be it Iran, India, France, or the US, women are constantly fighting for control of their bodies.

The History of Pro- & Anti-Hijab Protests in Iran

Looking at Iran today, it can be hard to picture that only four decades ago, Iranian women were protesting for the right to wear hijabs. The pro-hijab movement sparked when Iran’s Reza Shah Pahlavi government outlawed any type of veil or head scarfs in an attempt to westernize the country.

At times, the government even forced a complete ban on hijabs, with police scrapping off women’s hijabs in public. During this period of Iranian history, the hijab becomes the symbol of freedom, revolution, and democracy.

The pro-hijab uprising brought down Shah’s government and put Ruhollah Khomeini in office. The Khomeini government, however, was far from ideal. By 1983, the new administration mandated the hijab for Iranian women.

Women were now forced to wear headscarves to an extent where they were punished with prison and even lashes for not abiding by the dress code. The worst phase started after 2005 when Dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad introduced the Morality Police; a police department made up of both men and women to keep an eye on women’s clothing in public.

All this brings us to 13 September 2022, when Mahsa Amini, a 22-years old Iranian Kurdish woman, was arrested for violating the hijab code. In police custody, she was subjected to brutal violence that ended up taking her life three days later, on 16 September.

And it was her horrific death that sparked Iran’s historic anti-hijab protest we are witnessing today.

Women’s Right: The Death of Mahsa Amini & the Dirty Politics

The death of Mahsa Amini has sparked unprecedented protests in Iran. Despite a visible crackdown by the Iranian security forces, which includes mass arrests and internet interruption; women are taking the movement to the streets at a scale never seen before.

However, let’s put protests aside for this article. Because what’s happening in Iran right now is much more than just women fighting for their right to choose.

There has been no shortage of individuals, groups, and foreign entities weaponizing these protests to push their political and geopolitical goals.

Many gulf countries, for example, are using these protests to push back the nuclear deal. Backing on the demonstrations, the Western governments, including the US and EU, are considering further sanctions on Iran — even though the economic sanctions have already caused more than enough problems for Iranian women and their families.

And above all are Islamophobes who are using the protest to criticize hijabs, Muslims, and Islam in general. But how is any of this going to help the protesting women in Iran?

Everybody is currently striving to further their agendas, while Iranian women are risking their lives on the street.

Iran and the US: Not So Different Countries for Women’s Rights

Although the US and the Iranian government have polar ideologies, the US is in no state to police Iran morally regarding women’s rights.

It is the US, where a 10-year-old victim of rape from Ohio is not allowed to go through an abortion because of the new state law. Women in the US are protesting against the blanket ban on abortion, with no hope for reforms.

On the other hand, the anti-hijab protest in Iran has reignited the hijab debate in India. Why is it so difficult for the Karnatak government to respect the choice of Muslim women students to wear a hijab to college? It’s absurd that these students have to fight their own government for their choice to be respected.

But be it Iran, Pakistan, India, or the USA, the debate remains the same: do women have the right to choose? Or is the word choice totally non-existential for women?

The Courageous Women of Iran

Women protesting in Iran are not again the hijab but against the imposition of the hijab. But when religion takes over governments, it creates an illusion of unlimited power. This is the case of Iranian authorities who are practicing absolute power by virtue of morality police.

But is it acceptable to restrain women against their will like literal goons?

"What makes Iranian women so extraordinary is their strength and determination despite living in a theocracy that attempts to prosecute them. Even when their own government is trying to repress them, they are standing tall and fighting against injustice."

The protest that started with the death of Mahsa has now become an international movement for women’s right to choose. And, make no mistake, women are not alone here. Most Iranian male population stands with courageous Iranian women on the frontline against injustice in the name of religion.

Let Women Exercise their Right to Choice

Yes, when it comes to hijab rights in Iran, India, or the US, choosing the right side is not always straightforward. It’s complicated with numerous factors, including individuality, choice, and religion, at play.

"But, on this divided internet, can we at least agree that punishing women for not wearing hijab is wrong and medieval?"

We should stand with Iranian women protesting for their freedom, fundamental rights, and liberation. I will continue to speak against governments banning women from wearing hijabs and against regimes that force them to wear them.

Hijab or no hijab: how about we let women everywhere have the right to choose?

Israel Has No Right To Exist If Palestine Has No Right To Exist

A favorite mantra Israel and her propaganda mouthpieces around the world keep invoking and repeating is that Israel’s foes don’t recognize the apartheid entity’s right to exist. This scandalous tool of disinformation is then parroted unceasingly by gullible and dishonest western officials without verifying its veracity.

In this article, I will try to explain why many people around the world, including hundreds of millions of Muslims, have serious, honest and credible objections about "the crime against humanity known as Israel"

Israel doesn’t define its borders

To begin with, Israel doesn’t define its borders in order to  conceal its territorial ambitions from the world. According to some Talmudic sages, Israel’s territory includes all of mandatory Palestine, the SinaiPeninsula, northern Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Southern Turkey, most of Iraq, Kuwait, and northern Saudi Arabia.

I am not inventing anything. This piece of information comes from Israel Shahak’s highly informative Book “Jewish History, Jewish Religion: The Weight of Three Thousand Years (Pluto Middle Eastern Studies) Paperback – December 1, 1997

Some Israeli commentators remarked several years ago that Israel’s real borders extend to the extent reached by Israeli tanks and troops. In other words, wherever the Israeli army stops, there lie the borders of Israel.

We have Reached another part of Israel

In the mid- 1990s, when the late king Hussein of Jordan invited Israeli Knesset members to a Ramadan  fast-breaking feast in Amman, and while the Israeli plane was entering the Jordanian airspace, then Knesset Speaker Haim Shelansky remarked that “we have reached  another part of Eretz Yisrae(Land of Israel).

Now, I would like to pose the following question: Which nation-state in the whole world would recognize the legitimacy of a neighboring state that is hell-bent on occupying its neighbors’ land and claiming it as its own land? Indeed, if the acquisition of territory by force is  acceptable, then the world should recognize as perfectly legitimate the occupation and annexation by Russia of four Ukrainian provinces?

Israel might argue that its occupation and annexation of Arab land occurred only after the Jewish state came under attacked by Arab neighbors, a claim lacking historical accuracy. But even if the argument was correct, an aggression would only give states the right to repulse the aggression, not occupy the aggressor’s territory.

Apartheid: a cruel system of domination and repression

Apart from Israel’s Lebensraum designs and ambitions in the Middle East, Israel is, regardless of the worthless remarks by ignorant or hypocritical US and European leaders, Israel is a manifestly racist apartheid entity by law (the Nationality Law), though the term apartheid is replaced with a euphemistic expression to deceive ordinary people, especially in the West. 

In fact, Israel practices apartheid in every conceivable aspect of life-from water allocations in the West Bank to home demolition policies. Thus, the “first order of business” to punish a Palestinian resistance fighter (Israel calls anyone resisting its extremely cruel occupation “terrorist”!) is to demolish his family home, as if the death of the Palestinian, who often gets killed or captured and then sentenced to imprisonment for life, is not enough.! So, his otherwise totally innocent family, including children, must be tormented and savaged.

On the contrary, when a Jewish terrorist murders dozens of innocent Palestinians, the terrorist’s family home or even his own home is not demolished. And if he got killed or was imprisoned, usually under lenient conditions, his wife and kids would receive hefty amounts of “insurance” and charity money from wealthy Jewish donors and Evangelical Christian Zionists in the United States and elsewhere.

I am not talking about hypothetical matters. In 1994, an American Jewish terrorist named Baruch Goldstein murdered 29 Palestinian worshipers while praying at the Ibrahimi Mosque in al-Khalil in the Southern West Bank. The terrorist was eventually neutralized by survivors.

 His family received an unspecified but large sum of money from private American sources. Moreover, the Tomb of the Mass murderer in the settlement of Kiryat Arba near Hebron became a pilgrimage site visited by extremist Jews from around the world. Interestingly, a fan of Baruch Goldstein named Ben Gvir is now heading an electoral list that is slated to run in the upcoming general Israeli elections on 1 November. According to Israeli media, Ben Gvir considers the mass murderer Goldstein as his ultimate hero.

Fascism is mainstream in Israel

But Gvir is by no means Goldstein’s only fan.  In fact, it is widely believed that hundreds of thousands of Israeli and American Jews adopt a deeply racist and even genocidal mentality, not only against Palestinians, but against non-Jews in general. Just read their books, pamphlets, comments on news sites. Read their college curricula in Yeshivot or Talmudic colleges like Mirkaz Harav in West Jerusalem, and see for yourselves. 

I can’t finish this thread without pointing to a very important fact in this regard. In 1994, the genocidal Zionist religious ideology was espoused by a marginal minority of Israeli Jews. Today, This toxic ideology, in its various forms and levels represents, more or less, the mainstream current in the Jewish state.

According to the Ynet English site, today, over 65% of Israeli Jews say they are identified with the right. Interestingly, the terms “right and left” don’t denote or connote the same thing in Israel as in Europe and the United States.

Thus, the Likud, a fascist party by excellance, which supports apartheid and racism against non-Jews, is considered by most Israelis as representing the “moderate right” while the Kahana groups, like the above-mentioned Ben Gvir’s list, are reffered to as “far-right.”

In fact, in any true democracy worthy of the name, all Israeli right-wing groups, including the Likud, Yamina, Gush Emunim, Religious Zionism, etc, would be immediately banned and barred from taking part in elections, due to their legal classification as Nazi parties.

Criminal Western hypocrisy

I am absolutely sure that Western governments and leaders fully understand this fact. Yet, they choose to ignore it for two main reasons: First, their mortal fear of the Zionist ghoul and the macabre risk of being labeled anti-Semites. This is what eventually politically destroyed the former leader of the British Labor Party, Jeremy Corbyn, who made some non-conformist but totally correct remarks, criticizing Israeli racism and apartheid in Palestine.

The timeless British crime

Second, the inherent historical racism of the US and Europe against Islam and Muslims which culminated in 1917, when Britain issued the nefarious Balfour Declaration that gave Palestine on a silver platter to greedy Khazar Jews. Needless to say, this infamous declaration, was perfected in 1948, when the evil entity of Israel was established by western powers, ostensibly to compensate Jews for the Holocaust.  Hence, the helpless people of Palestine were made to pay the price for German crimes against Jews during the Second war of the world.  Yes, this gargantuan crime against humanity, namely Israel, will continue to cry out to the seventh heaven until the very last day of life on earth.

We Palestinians will not give in to endless melancholy. However, the very least we can and must do is not to recognize the legitimacy of Israel. This is the very least we must do as moral human beings.

Manifest Destiny As to the West, which embraces Israeli racism, expansionism, aggression, criminality and hegemony, it is only revealing its true colors, which we Muslims have been  familiar with since the days of Chanson de Roland. This is the very same West which exterminated  numerous millions of Native Americans and then called the huge genocide “manifest Destiny.

Online Job Scams: Fake Jobs Costing Victims Thousands Of Dollars

Online job scams are at an all-time high. Companies offering salaries as high as US$4,000 are luring thousands of victims every month.

So, if you are a jobseeker, this is the article you don’t want to miss.

Online Jobs Scams: Too Good to Be True Jobs

Jasmine Robinson, a jobseeker from Long Island, N.Y., was on cloud nine when she cleared the interview for her ‘dream job.’ First, a company named Obsidian Entertainment offered a payment of $55 an hour. Next came a check for $8,000. Supposedly, to buy work-from-home equipment for better productivity.

But, there was something fishy. From applying for the job to onboarding, everything was moving really quickly. Though the company had many documents to show its ‘legitimacy,’ Jasmine couldn’t take a chance.

So, she researched, and all her suspicion proved true. The job was a scam. The scammers were luring victims by offering a high-paying online job and an $8000 joining bonus. However, as soon as they get the victim’s bank and card details, they withdraw all their savings.

Jasmine was amongst the lucky few to avert the danger. But, in fear of being scammed, she had to deactivate her card and bank account.

A similar large-scale ‘pig butchering’ case was brought to light earlier this month. Fake profiles of over a thousand Chinese SpaceX engineers on LinkedIn scammed millions of dollars.

Over $58.5 million Lost in Job Scam in the First Half of 2022

With over 3,500 cases reported and over $58.5 million lost, job scams have topped the list of top 10 online scams list issued by The Straits Times. Followed by phishing, e-commerce, and investment scams accounting for 74.5% of all online scams in the first half of 2022.

“These (online job) scammers are typically part of organized criminal groups and run sophisticated transnational operations which are not easy to detect or dismantle.”

Singapore Police

The number was significantly higher compared to 2021, during the same period. While some fraudsters scam victims for their personal information, many also hire people for fake data entry jobs or something shady, like reshipping expensive items purchased via stolen credit cards.

How do the Fake Jobs Trap You?

Scammers use multiple fraudulent ways to trap victims in their online job scams. The most popular techniques used include:

Fake Website

Everyone wants some source of extra income, and we turn to Google in our search for the perfect online jobs. The scammers know this, so they build a strong website with the best SEO tactics to outrank genuine websites on search engines and establish authenticity.

Fake Job Listings

All the verified job listing portals, like Monster, Indeed, etc., ask you to submit all the information about your schooling, address, DOB, employment history, and more. However, many scammers can retrieve all your data from these portals.

These scammers usually target victims from tier 2-3 cities or ones who don’t have much educational qualifications. Once they have your contact information, they’ll send you malicious links guaranteeing reputable online jobs or cash rewards.

The Re-Shipping Frauds

One of the online job scams is a re-shipping fraud occasionally promoted as a job opening for “quality control supervisors” or “virtual assistants.” After being employed, your responsibility is to receive packages at your house, repackage them, and frequently send them to an overseas location.

Typically, expensive products like gadgets are purchased, and the credit cards used to make the purchases are stolen. Reshipping scam victims claim they were not reimbursed.

Reselling expensive goods is a different kind of work-from-home fraud. Victims are informed that they may make money by purchasing name-brand goods below retail and reselling them for a profit. However, when customers pay for the goods, the shipment never materializes.

How to Detect the Fraud?

Data by the Federal Trade Commission highlights that Americans have incurred a loss of over $68 million due to job scams in the first quarter of 2022. And as employment scams get more sophisticated, jobseekers need to be vigilant when searching for any new opportunity.

Here are some red flags to detect fraud jobs:

• Upfront Fees or Payment: Companies ask for payment for software installation, company laptops, or even creating credit reports before starting any work.
• Week Business Model: Unable to justify the business model, how the company makes a profit, or what value the business produces (most common for data entry jobs)
• Too Good to be True: Significantly high payments for negligible effort
• No Qualification Check: Similar to the case of Jasmines, the recruiter is ready to hire candidates with little to no qualification checks.
• Fake Attempt to Build Authenticity: When the recruiter sends you evidence to prove their legitimacy, for example, their corporation certificate, CIN number, payment proof, etc.

Online Job Scams: Be Viginalt, Stay Safe

With the evolving workplaces and rise in online work opportunities, the threat of job scams is increasing. Especially now, when the world economy is under a looming recession and unemployment is at an all-time high.

But not if you analyze every opportunity keenly, ask the right questions, and do all the safety checks before handing over your personal and bank details.

Therefore, always be vigilant for fake jobs and never send money or reveal personal financial information during the hiring process. And, if in doubt, run the staffing agency or company through Better Business Bureau‘s directory.