Daniel Akill's Blog

332: MIA = MISSING IN ACTION; MIS = MISSING IN SYRIA – Missing Lebanese in Syria’s Prisons

MIA = MISSING IN ACTION; MIS = MISSING IN SYRIA – Missing Lebanese in Syria’s Prisons

Families in Beirut demand an accounting

Gleaned from: The International Herald Tribune Tuesday 5^th April 2005

BEIRUT: The last glimpse Violet Nassif had of her son, Johnny, was when he stood in the shadows behind iron bars, just inside the dark corridor of a Syrian prison, with a guard on each arm. Then, a few seconds later, he was pulled back into the darkness. Since that day in April, 1994, Johnny Nasssif – a 15-year-old Lebanese Army recruit when he was taken prisoner four years earlier in 1990, after Michael Aoun’s Fiasco, Folly, and Madness – officially ceased to exist. They told her he wasn't there anymore.

Johnny is the symbol of the hundreds of Lebanese soldiers who were deserted by their leader, Aoun, and who survived the terror-trip to Syria after Aoun’s Mad-War against the Syrian Army and the Lebanese Forces combined – a war that split the Lebanese Army and Lebanese families into factions, tore the whole country asunder, and forced fathers and brothers and sisters to hate and kill each other; and when things got too hot for him – when he felt the hot breath of the Syrian jackals and hyenas on his neck – he fled like a jackal in orange pyjamas. Most of those taken prisoners were members of Aoun’s battalion or one of the several militias during the civil – especially those that resented, denied, protested, or fought against Syria’s presence and influence.

For years, mothers like Violet Nassif were thwarted not just by the Syrians, who denied the existence of the prisoners but also by Lebanon's leaders who responded with mask-like faces, passivity, and silence. The callous apathy of both the Syrian and Lebanese governments toward the families of THE MIS had long stood as a testament to how thoroughly the Syrian government had dominated this tiny country by the Mediterranean Sea. Through doggedness and bribes – and only-God-and-Satan-know what else – a few mothers like Violet found their sons and paid dearly for a few moments together.

Three years after the so-called end of decades of the Syrian Army’s military occupation calls have risen in Beirut for Lebanese leaders to demand an accounting of their citizens held in Syrian jails – their MIS: Missing In Syria.

A member of the Lebanese opposition and of Parliament said that it was very possible that the new government would re-open the issue and ask the Syrians: Where are our people? And demand: Let our people go! This Ass-hole of the Compost Opposition must be a Johnny-come-lately on the Lebanese political scene and doesn’t know much. Aoun won’t have it, or let it, or allow it! He would have to stand before the men he so cowardly deserted – those that are still alive, which I strongly doubt – and explain himself! They might forgive him for deserting them, but not for abandoning his wife and three daughters!

A commission once looked into the Lebanese prisoners in Syria issue and determined that at least 120 Lebanese either were in Syrian jails or had died there, and yet, so intimidating was Syria’s presence that, the report was never published. Actually, the report was rejected by the then Lebanese president, Émile Lahhoud, and the then prime minister, Rafiq Harriri. I am willing to bet a bent buffalo nickel that Emile Le-Hood, the Hermit-Baboon and Jinx, rejected the report willingly and gladly but Rafiq Harriri was forced to reject it.

A Lebanese group, Families of Lebanese Held in Syria, compiled a list of 280 Lebanese who, they say, had been carted off to Syrian prisons and never returned, and that there was good reason to believe that the Syrians were holding more than 280.

Syria's leaders said they had released the last of their Lebanese prisoners in December 2000. But human rights groups, as well as the U.S. government, do not place much credence in that. The director of Families of Lebanese Held in Syria said the Syrian government has quietly released at least a dozen prisoners since 2000. Most of the Lebanese that the Syrians have released so far were not on the organization's list.

Amnesty International said they believed that Syria was still holding an undetermined number of Lebanese prisoners. One of them, Joseph Huways, died under torture in a Syrian jail in June 2003, long after the Syrian leaders said all had been released.

Joseph is the symbol of all the innocent victims of our so-called sister and friend, Syria

The other families were left to wonder whether their sons and husbands were still alive or dead, and, if they were still alive, whether they were among the many being tortured in Syrian prisons. A Syrian official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, did not respond to a request for an interview.

LEBANESE IN SYRIAN PRISONS: A Top Priority Issue

Alternative report by the SOLIDA movement (Support for Lebanese Detained Arbitrarily) July 2005

The SOLIDA movement feels sharply concerned about the situation and conditions of Lebanese detained in solitary confinement in Syrian prisons.

Since 1976, Syria had resorted to kidnappings. Even today, it is estimated that at least 280 Lebanese are still in Syria, in solitary confinement, without trial, under inhuman conditions. To give one example of conditions in Syrian prisons, a Lebanese prisoner who had been released from a Syrian prison in 1998 told how he blinded himself in order to escape his torturers.

Their families, represented by the Committee of Families of Lebanese prisoners in Syria, have not received any answers or information regarding the situation and/or conditions of their relatives in Syrian prisons. The Syrian authorities have remained silent on the issue.

On July 22^nd2002, the Syrian Minister of the Interior received a delegation from the Committee of Families of Lebanese prisoners held in Syrian prisons in Damascus, and confirmed the presence and detention of Lebanese in Syria and promised the families to review the prisoner's files submitted to him (a list of 174 names) and to provide answers to the families within a 2-3 months period of time. In 2005, almost three years after that promise, the families still had not received any answers. They were actually repulsed at the Syrian border on November 2nd 2002, even though they had an appointment with the Interior Minister.

Dear readers and fellow-Apes; no comments. Use your brain, (IF) you’ve got one!

331: SEVERAL PRISONERS KILLED IN PRISON RIOT IN SYRIA – Syrian Military Police Opened Fire on Inmates Protesting Poor/Squalid Conditions

SEVERAL PRISONERS KILLED IN PRISON RIOT IN SYRIA – Human Rights Group Claims Military Police Opened Fire on Inmates Protesting Poor Conditions

CBS-NEWS via Yahoo! News Alerts Saturday 5^th July 2008

DAMASCUS: The London-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights reported on its Web-site that several prisoners were killed and several more wounded in a riot at the Sidnaya Prison approximately 30km north of Damascus, but indicated there was no clear way to get to the bottom of the incident. Islamist prisoners had staged a protest earlier in the day over poor conditions at the prison. The group reported that military police opened fire on the prisoners. The head of Syria's National Organization for Human Rights told the Press by telephone that he could see smoke billowing from the prison and prisoners standing on the roof. He added that ambulances were ferrying the wounded to the hospital. There has been no official word yet from the Syrian government, which usually does not comment on human rights issues.

My comments: Like the Covert Nuclear Reactor at Al Kibar which the Israeli Air Force destroyed on Thursday 6^th September 2007 and which Syria later – and today – deny it ever existed, the above incident will also go down the drain of iniquity, followed by deleting and denial. Imagine the Israeli Air Force flying all the way to Al Kibar in Syria to destroy a building just for fun! Read my posting: 275

REUTERS ALERT-NET via Yahoo! Alerts 22^ndJul 2008

BEIRUT: A New York-based Human Rights Watch has called on Syria to order an independent inquiry into the above deadly incident and the use of lethal force by the military police, and to disclose the victims' names. The Syrian authorities have said very little or nothing at all about it. They said it had been put down by the next day, but the jail remains surrounded by security forces; visits are banned, and a nearby hospital is also off limits. Human rights organisations in Syria have reported that as many as 25 prisoners were killed, and that they had obtained the names of nine inmates thought to be dead. One member of the military police was also confirmed dead following his burial near Aleppo. Syria has been ruled by the Baath Party since 1963 and holds thousands of Islamists and other political prisoners; including writers and human rights advocates – and not a few Lebanese.

Dear readers and fellow-Apes; we all saw how the so-called enemy, Israel, treats or treated its prisoners, even convicted callous and brutal murderers like Samir Kuntar, who re-appeared on the Lebanese political and terrorist scene after 3 decades of being a prisoner in Israel, looking robust – he had been well-fed and well-looked after and taken care of; married and divorced – with a degree in social and political science – he had been well-educated, too – and all at the expense of Israel and Israeli tax payers. And we have seen how the so-called sister and friend, Syria, treats its prisoners – packs them into cells like sardines in tins, in the most terrible and squalid conditions, with no facilities or amenities; and either starves them or tortures and mutilates them to death, and if they dare to complain or whine or protest, they are shot to death.

From what I saw of the way the Lebanese Army mishandled the poor protesters – parents and family members and friends of Lebanese prisoners in Syria who only wanted to intercept that fat, over-fed, bloated Syrian Hog, Walid Moallem, to hand him a letter begging for the release of their loved-ones – I wonder whether the Lebanese Army hadn’t been trained by or taken lessons from the Syrian Army! I also wonder why they hadn’t shot the protesters outright! BY GOD! Read my posting: 330 and my next posting: 332

330: LEBANESE ARMY FORCEFULLY AND VIOLENTLY BREAKS UP PEACEFUL PROTEST AGAINST LEBANESE DETAINEES IN SYRIAN PRISONS

LEBANESE ARMY FORCEFULLY AND VIOLENTLY BREAKS UP PEACEFUL PROTEST AGAINST LEBANESE DETAINEES IN SYRIAN PRISONS

Protestors demand release of Lebanese prisoners in Syria – before 1975 to 2005

The Daily Star via Yahoo! Alerts Tuesday, July 22, 2008

Dear readers and fellow-Apes; no comments other than the short comment in-between. However, kindly read my postings: 18 / 40 / 49 / 67 / 260 / 328/ 329

BEIRUT: Parents, relatives, and friends of Lebanese citizens who disappeared between 1975 and 2005 gathered around 10:30am on Monday morning next to the presidential palace in Baabda, where Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem was expected to arrive; protesting against the detention in Syria of their family members and relatives. Several protestors held pictures of their detained or lost relatives as well as banners with slogans in Arabic: no diplomatic relations before the return of Lebanese held in Syrian prisons and there are Lebanese prisoners not only in Israel, but in Syria as well.

The demonstration took an unfortunate turn of events as the Lebanese Armed Forces – the Lebanese Army – violently forced the protesters to move away as they were trying to intercept Walid Moallem's convoy or block the road; they were forcefully pushed back and beaten up by LAF forces. Some demonstrators suffered wounds as a result.

The protest had been organized with the help of the civil society representatives, human-rights associations and members of local and international non-governmental organisations who had held similar demonstrations in the past, but that time, the protest was called to coincide with Moallem's visit to Lebanon. The founder of Support for Lebanese in Detention and Exile (SOLIDE), an NGO which has longed worked to uncover the fate of Lebanese detainees in Syrian prisons confirmed the existence of Lebanese detainees in Syrian prisons.

In a news conference after his parliamentary bloc's meeting on Monday, Free Patriotic Movement leader, MP Michael Aoun, said that clashes between demonstrators and the LAF were truly unfortunate and that the new government would double its efforts to uncover the fate of detainees in Syrian prisons as the fate of these missing people could not be ignored.

By the way, and for your information; dear readers and fellow-Apes; let us hope that the 600 soldiers he deserted – he abandoned his wife and three daughters, too – and left them to face the invading Syrian hordes on the night he fled in his orange pyjamas to the French Embassy and later to France are part of those detained in Syrian prisons and let us hope THEY, AND ALL THE OTHERS, ARE STILL ALIVE.

According to a researcher with Human Rights Watch who took part in the protest, the demonstrators – mostly mothers and sisters of detainees – were violently pushed by the LAF who used their rifle butts to disperse the crowd. He said that the protesters were un-armed, so there was no need for the army to resort to such violence.

The head of Union for Lebanon – or Onion for Lebanon – told reporters that the detainees issue was more important than Lebanese-Syrian diplomatic relations or the border demarcation between the two neighboring countries.

Five prisoners and 200 bodies were handed over to Hezballah by Israel last Wednesday as part of a prisoner swap deal.

Despite the brawl with the LAF, the protestors were able to send a seven-point letter to President Michael Suleiman who, in his inaugural speech, expressed his will to deal with the issue. The letter called for including the prisoners' issue in the upcoming ministerial statement. It also called for the formation of a national commission to look into the issue of detainees in Syria, as well as creating a DNA database through the missing people's relatives, and an international investigative commission, as a last resort, to find out the whereabouts and the fates of the missing Lebanese in Syrian prisons, and to try any that committed any crimes against humanity – including their collaborators.

Walid Moallem remarked during a news conference on Monday on the existence of Syrian detainees in Lebanese prisons. The Daily Star was told that there were actually names of Syrians who disappeared in Lebanon during the 1975-90 Civil War, but it was surprising that Syria never dealt with this issue when it was in control of the country. However, information about Syrian detainees in Lebanese prisons could be easily made available as Lebanese prisons were accessible to the Red Cross and other humanitarian organizations.

Syria has to provide a correct list of Lebanese and non-Lebanese detainees abducted on Lebanese soil. While the Syrian authorities have always been reluctant to give out information about Lebanese prisoners, some detainees' parents said they had proof of their children's imprisonment in Syria as they had been able to contact and sometimes visit them. The detainees had never even been given a fair trial.

329: THEY MOURNED FOR THOSE; WHO WILL MOURN FOR THE OTHERS?

THEY MOURNED FOR THOSE; WHO WILL MOURN FOR THE OTHERS?

HEZBALLAH HOLDS FUNERAL & MOURNS GUERILLAS KILLED IN 2006

Gleaned from Earth-Times Friday 18^th July 2008 and assorted newspapers/websites

BEIRUT: The Lebanese militant group, Hezballah, held a funeral for eight guerrillas killed during its 2006 war with Israel. Their bodies were returned in a prisoners swap last week. Thousands of Hezballah supporters attended Friday's funeral in Beirut's southern suburbs. The eight coffins were lined up in a huge hall in Beirut's southern suburbs, where grieving women, parents, relatives, and friends had gathered to bid their last farewell. Hezbollah's Executive Council Chief, Hashem Safieddine, in a speech inaugurating the ceremony, said the eight men defeated Israel twice; once during the war in 2006 and again by returning home. He spoke in front of their coffins, which were covered with Hezballah's yellow flags. Their bodies were later taken to their home-towns. Israel released five Lebanese prisoners and the remains of almost 200 guerrillas – including 191 Arab fighters, mostly Palestinians – in return for the bodies of two soldiers whose capture triggered the 34-day war. A prayer was recited for the souls of the dead as wailing women kissed the coffins before they were paraded through the streets by Hezbollah fighters in uniform – these women are professionals, and they would wail for anyone and kiss anything for the right price. There are women like them in all the religions on the planet that are either being sold to, or forced down the throats of, the ASSES – that’s “MASSES” without the “M” and they do not fool me a single iota.

Dear readers and fellow-Apes; I don’t know about all of you, or almost all of you, or most of you, or half of you, or some of you, or a few of you out there, but the fact that these people held a funeral and mourned for 200 guerillas – only eight of them were Lebanese – who died in a war that neither Lebanon, nor the Lebanese government, nor the Lebanese people, wanted or needed at the time – a war that killed 1,200 innocent Lebanese men, women, and children; deprived thousands of children of summer camps and schools or a normal summer holiday; dispersed hundreds of thousands all over the country who became Lebanese refugees in Lebanon; imprisoned in schools and other educational institutions and camps; scattered hundreds of thousands to the four winds, who fled with only their shirts on their backs; destroyed several bridges and devastated the whole country – especially the south; and deprived several thousands of people of their incomes or jobs – most of the businesses, establishments, restaurants, shops, even hospitals, Etc, were either closed down or semi-closed down because both management and staff and/or employees could not come or go to work; and all as the result of the July 2006 Fiasco, Folly and Madness – makes me sick!

Also, I don’t know about all of you, Etc, and so forth and so on out there, but what I’d like to know is: WHO WILL MOURN FOR THE 1,200; WHO WILL BRING BACK THE SUMMER OF 2006 TO THE CHILDREN OR CURE THEIR TRAUMA; WHO WILL BRING BACK THE HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS THAT FLED THEIR BELOVED COUNTRY, AND WHO HAVE SETTLED DOWN ELSEWHERE; WHO WILL COMPENSATE THE SEVERAL THOUSANDS WHO LOST THEIR JOBS AND/OR INCOMES?

Trauma: an extremely distressing experience that causes severe emotional shock and may have long-lasting psychological effects; a serious injury or wound to the mind or to the body

328: SAMIR KUNTAR – A Hero, or a Heel? That depends on whether you’re…

SAMIR KUNTAR – A Hero, or a Heel? That depends on whether you’re………

That depends on whether you’re a member of Hezballah or Amal, or any of their alliances; or whether you’re a parent or sibling, relative, or friend of any one of the 1,200 innocent men, women and children who died; or a parent whose child or children lost the chance of summer camps and schools or enjoying a normal summer holiday; or any of the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese who fled with only their shirts on their backs – so to speak – or one of the several thousands of people who lost their incomes or their jobs as a result of the 12^th July 2006 Fiasco, Folly and Madness – a Devil’s Cauldron of vanity, stupidity, naivety, futility, betrayal and treachery.

Samir Kuntar Arabic: القنطار‎ سمير also transcribed Sameer, Kantar, Quntar, Qantar (1962) in Abey, Lebanon, is a Druze Lebanese militant who belonged to the Palestine Liberation Front. On April 22, 1979, at the age of 17, Samir Kuntar led a group of four PLF members who entered Israel from Lebanon by boat. The group members included Abdel Majeed Asslan (1955), Mhanna Salim Al-Muayed (1960) and Ahmed Al-Abras (1949). They all belonged to the PLF under the leadership of Abu Abbas. The group departed from Tyre in South Lebanon on a 55 horse-powered motorized rubber boat or dinghy. The goal of the operation was to attack Nahariya, 10 kilometers away from the Lebanese border. They called their operation the Nasser Operation.

They arrived in the coastal town of Nahariya around midnight. They killed a policeman, Eliyahu Shahar, who came across them. The group then entered a building in Jabotinsky Street where they formed two groups. One group broke into the apartment of the Haran family before the police arrived. They took Danny Haran (31) and his 4-year-old daughter, Einat, hostages. The mother, Smadar Haran, was able to hide in a small attic above the bedroom with her two year-old daughter Yael, and a neighbour.

Witnesses testified that Kuntar's group took Danny and Einat down to the beach, where a shootout with Israeli policemen and soldiers took place. According to the witnesses, Kuntar shot Danny in the back at close range, in front of his daughter, and drowned him in the sea to make sure he was dead. Next, eyewitnesses said he smashed 4-year-old Einat’s head on beach-rocks and crushed her skull with the butt of his rifle.

According to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, after he had been captured, Kuntar initially admitted to bludgeoning Einat to death, but at his trial, he denied killing the 4-year-old. However, after the evidence and testimonies from Kuntar's 1980 trial had been published, the pathologist's report presented at the trial stated that Einat's brain-matter was found on the butt of Kuntar's rifle. In his testimony, Kuntar asserted that Israeli gunfire had killed Danny Haran as soldiers burst in (where; on the beach?) to free him, and that he did not see what happened to Einat; having passed out due to blood-loss from five bullet wounds. He explained that the group's goal had been to take hostages back to Lebanon, and that he had taken the 4-year-old to prevent Israeli police from shooting at them, but he could not explain how Etnat’s brain-matter got on the butt of his rifle.

He was convicted of murdering three Israelis directly – an Israeli policeman, a 31 year-old man, Danny Haran, and his 4-year-old daughter – and one child, Yael, indirectly, during the raid. Kuntar received four life-sentences in an Israeli court, and spent nearly three decades in prison before his release on July 16, 2008 as part of an Israel-Hezballah prisoner-swap. After his release, Kuntar claimed the Israeli government had fabricated the child’s murder-allegations – Hassan Nesrallah told him to say that; not all of us are Etc, and so forth and so on.

Smadar Haran accidentally suffocated Yael to death while attempting to keep her quiet. A policeman and two of Kuntar's comrades were killed in the shootout on the beach. Kuntar and the fourth member of the group, Ahmed Al-Abras, were captured. Ahmed Al-Abras was freed by Israel under the Jibril Agreement of May 1985, which makes us – and I, especially – wonder why Hezballah waited until the summer of 2006 to attack Israel and drag Lebanon and the Lebanese through that murderous maelstrom!

According to Kuntar's former cellmate, Yasser Hanjar, Kuntar never expressed remorse. During his imprisonment, Kuntar married an Israeli-Arab woman who was an activist on behalf of militant prisoners, but later divorced her. While they were married, she received a monthly stipend from the Israeli government, an entitlement due to her status as the wife of a prisoner. Also during his imprisonment, Kuntar graduated from the Open University of Israel in social and political science. BY GOD!

Dear readers and fellow-Apes; first, from the above report, we have seen how the so-called enemy, Israel, treats its prisoners – even those caught red-handed after callously and brutally murdering its citizens; including two very young and innocent children. Second, we know that Samir Kuntar was seriously wounded when he was captured – five bullet-holes – which means he was well cared for and looked after, and treated well and well-treated by very good doctors and surgeons and nurses in very good hospitals. Third, we saw how hale and hearty – well and healthy – Samir Kuntar looked on the day he was released. Fourth, he is now a university graduate – something he achieved while in prison in Israel – which means he was given or allowed facilities and amenities he never had before he was captured and will never have again. And fifth, he himself admitted that he envied the Israelis for the way they treated their prisoners and hostages. Now, all we need to do is find out how Syria treats – or treated – its prisoners.

To the rest of the world, and to the average, decent, sensible, educated and enlightened Human-Ape, Samir Kuntar is A HEEL, and one of the most callous and brutal murderers and terrorists, but to Hezballah and Amal and their alliances, and to most of the blind, deaf, naïve, illiterate and ignorant Lebanese, he’s a ….

Illiterate and ignorant in the sense that education and enlightenment are not as they are acquired or assimilated but as they are applied and/or used! BY GOD AGAIN!

327: THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT CANCER IN ARAB AND ARAB-SPEAKING COUNTRIES: If you’re not half a man – that is, if you’re not Gay – and you meet a woman…

THE SEXUAL HARASSMENT CANCER IN ARAB AND ARAB-SPEAKING COUNTRIES: If you’re not half a man – that is, if you’re not Gay – and you meet a woman…

BBC News via Yahoo! Alerts Friday 18^th Jul 2008

CAIRO: According to a survey published this week, Sexual Harassment of women in Egypt is on the increase and observing Islamic Dress Code is no deterrent, according to a survey published this week. The Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights (ECWR) has described the problem as a Social Cancer and called on the government to introduce legislation to curb it. The findings contradict the widely held belief in Egypt that unveiled women are more likely to be harassed than veiled ones. Participants in the survey were shown pictures of women wearing different kinds of dress – from the mini skirt to the hijab and the niqab and asked which were more likely to be harassed. More than 60%, including female respondents, said that the scantily clad woman was most at risk. But in reality the study concluded the majority of the victims of harassment were modestly dressed women wearing full Islamic attire. The ECWR head said that even veiled women who were victims of harassment blamed themselves. Western women who took part in the study demonstrated a strong belief in their entitlement to personal safety and freedom of movement, she says, but this was totally absent among Egyptian respondents. No one spoke about freedom of choice, freedom of movement or the right to legal protection, and it did not even occur to anyone the harasser was a criminal, regardless of what clothes the victim was wearing.

Shocking attitude

The centre is campaigning for a new law that clearly defines Sexual Harassment as a crime and makes it easier for women to report it in Egypt – women like a young film-maker, who told the BBC she had been repeatedly pawed in broad daylight by a van driver in a Cairo traffic jam as she walked on the pavement. His behaviour made her so angry she ran after the van and held on to the side mirror to force the driver to stop so she could take him to a police station. She was equally shocked by the attitude of other passers-by. Some tried to dissuade her from going to the police - others blamed her for what she was wearing (a baggy sports outfit). In the end, she phoned her father who came and escorted the driver to a police station. But even there, police officers refused to open an investigation and urged her to forget the matter.

Impudent allegation

After her story had been published in the Badeel daily Editor-in-chief wrote that the behaviour of the crowd was characteristic of oppressed societies, where the majority identified with the oppressors. He blamed the increase in Sexual Harassments on what he said were three decades of incitement against women from the pulpits of some of Egypt's mosques. This verbal incitement is based on the extremely sordid and impudent allegation that our women are not modestly dressed. This was, and still is, a flagrant lie, used to justify violence against women in the name of ISLAM. The British Foreign Office said that Egypt is one of the countries with the highest number of cases reported to Embassy staff regarding sexual offences against visiting women. It warns them to be extra cautious in public places especially when alone because of the risks. Egyptians needed to re-evaluate their value system and school curricula and to ensure that the rule of law prevails and prevents offenders and criminals from walking free because of a breakdown of basic notions of right and wrong. Thanks to surveys like this, one encounters an endless number of newspaper articles reflecting the feeling that Egypt is in the grip of a moral crisis. Perhaps nothing illustrates Egypt's loss of a moral compass than the responses of some men in the ECWR study. Some said they harassed a woman simply because they were bored. One who abused a woman wearing the hijab and niqab said she must be beautiful, or hiding something.

My comments, short and sweet: If you’re an ARAB MALE in a city, town, or village, in an Arab or Arab-speaking country, and you’re not half a man – if you’re not Gay – and you meet a woman or a girl in a street or anywhere – whether she’s properly or improperly dressed – go ahead and Sexually Harass her! Sexually Abuse or Molest her, too! In other words, have your way with her: grab her, paw her, feel her, and take her! After all, she’s only a woman or a girl, so she’s either some man’s slave or servant – or an escaped prisoner; or some man’s object of pleasure and amusement; or a retarded person who managed to escape from her watchmen or supervisors; and she has no rights!

Those Males that saw did not see, and those Males that heard did not hear. Actually, they would be glad to join in the fun. As for the Females that saw and heard, they wouldn’t dare interfere or intervene, for fear of becoming victims, too, unless of course…

As for any one of the Religious Clerics; he would have loved to invite her home for an evening of Religious Studies and Social Norms, and Advice on what and what not to wear – and especially, how to take them off; and the police would have loved to keep her at the station overnight to help them in their investigation…you know what I mean. Actually, Religion – especially Islamic Religious Clerics – have done more to promote HIV/AIDS and Vice and Corruption than to prevent them by their misinterpretations or their own interpretations and versions of Islam and Islamic Laws; and by herding males (men and boys) and females (women and girls) into separate pens like cattle or goats, or like separating the sheep from the goats, on every occasion – wedding or funeral ceremonies, parties, get-togethers (even in homes), or whatever; and even in work-places – and every chance they get. They have agencies like “Religious Police (Pollutes)” and “Commissions for the Promotion of Vice and the Prevention of Virtue”

Also, it is much easier and safer for women and girls to do whatever they want and to commit whatever sin or so-called social moral misdemeanors when they are hidden from view – that is, when they know they cannot be known or recognised. Kindly read my posting: 120