Times are difficult nowadays. The West seems indifferent to its denigration by Islam. But I am very glad to be here today, to stand together with all of you and express my thoughts on the most critical issue of our times.
Sadly, the legal ordeals of freedom fighters like Lars Hedegaard, Geert Wilders, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, like Kurt Westergaard, Jesper Langballe, Rachel Ehrenfeld, Mark Steyn and others, are all a clear reminder on how far advanced is this unprecedented campaign to abrogate our fundamental rights in a free society.
There is no doubt that free speech, which is the bedrock of democracy and civilization, is under dangerous assault and launched from every direction.
From several continents, in multiple western countries, and by a diverse variety of leading leftist organizations and individuals who align themselves with Muslim institutions.
The fantacy of Muslim victimhood
They all promote the fantasy of Muslim victimhood, forcing the West to overprotect Muslims, to ignore their atrocities, and to surrender to their escalating demands.
All around the world, Muslims enforce non Muslims compliance and deliberate air-brushing of the extent and magnitude of the Islamic threat from Jihad to the treatment of women under Islam.
As approved by Sharia dictate, Muslims also try to forbid non-Muslims from speaking critically about Islam.
How do they accomplish that? They name anyone who engages in an honest examination of Islamic texts as a bigot, hateful and “Islamophobic.”
Telling the truth
Dissent brings trials for non specific “hate-speech” crimes as well as threats of riots, violence and boycotts. In many worst case scenarios they kill non Moslems and those brave Moslems who dare to defy mind control and suppression.
Only few days ago the courageous Lars Hedegaard was found guilty of so called “hate speech”, declaring him guilty of racist statements. Yet, Mr. Hedegaard has been telling the truth.
He has been bringing to the public’s attention the appalling widespread Islamic ‘honor’ violence; including rape and sex abuse within Muslim families.
During my thirty-two years living in Syria I have witnessed first hand, countless acts of vicious violence and cruelty.
As a practicing physician in Syria I have seen and treated numerous abused women who were severely beaten and raped with the tacit approval of Sharia and family “honor”.
Those victims I treated were of the same type of the honor violence victims which Mr. Hedegaard presently refers to and for which he is now being penalized by those who suppose to champion the same values we all hold dear in the West.
Let me stress that by suppressing the freedom to expose atrocities and cruelty against Muslim women, the West undermines their status as respected and valued citizens. Is that what government leaders seek to accomplish?
Are Muslim women who suffer immensely under Sharia, including in the West, not worthy of government protection?
I am alarmed at the coordinated effort by Islamists and their accomplices in the West to disrupt this basic right to freely express and expose what needs to be corrected.
As a result, I am here with all of you to share my views and offer some support on this gloomy state of affair.
Muslims are my people
The horrific attack on 9/11 has brought to light the recognition that no spot on earth is immune to Islamism. Indeed, my own personal stories apply to all of us.
This is because, as long as there are Muslims within our societies who promote Islamic Sharia and work tirelessly to apply Sharia law in our free societies, we need to be educated, vigilant and active in defending our liberties.
It is one issue that all of us must be concerned about and strongly attentive to.
I do not want anyone to think that I am here to incite anyone against Muslims.
Please understand that Muslims are my people and under any circumstances I wouldn’t be able to peel off my own skin and be anything else but a woman from a Muslim country and Islamic culture. But I am here to unearth the true face of Islam as a hateful and intolerant ideology, including its treatment of women.
Osama Bin Laden is now dead and gone. But the harsh and intolerable Sharia he so faithfully observed and practiced is live and thriving.
Bin Laden’s life and his horrific actions are a clear proof that Islamists are victims of ruthless dogma that strips them away from their inert common sense and turns them into human beasts.
At a very early age they are brainwashed to believe that Islam is bound to control the entire world and that their mission on earth is to fight for the sake of this goal. For that, the end justifies the means and so humiliating, abuse, torturing or killing is a divine mission.
Lara Logan, The CBS journalist who covered the recent Egyptian revolution broke the silence on a program called “60 minutes,” sharing the sexual violence that was afflicted on her as female or foreign journalists in the field.
In her own words she stated that the Egyptian mob that assaulted her and (quote) “really enjoyed my pain and suffering. It incited them to more violence.”
For many Westerners this is a vivid opening to the shocking treatment and continuous harassment of native, as well as foreign women in Egypt.
This practice persists due to Muslims’ mentality that women are possessions of men and do not belong in public. To add salt to wound, Muslims blame the victim for supposedly falling short of Islamic restrictions on dress and behavior.
Unfortunately, in her interview, Logan submitted to the persisting political correctness, and was careful not to use the words “Muslim” or “Islam” with connection to the horrific sexual ordeal against her.
Personal stories
Let me share with you only few personal stories. These are tales which only affirm Lara Logan’s deplorable episode and prove the pervasiveness in abuse of women in the Muslim world.
My own niece was forced to marry her cousin when she was eleven and he was over forty. Her marriage was valid under Islamic Sharia because the prophet Muhammad married his second wife Aisha when she was 6 years old, and he was over fifty. My niece, and for many years, was terribly abused and didn’t have the right to ask for divorce.
I always remember as if it happened yesterday when she would escape from her husband’s house to her father’s begging him; “Dad please let me stay here. I promise to be your maid to the last day of my life.
He is very abusive; I can’t take this torture any more”. Her father would reply; “it’s shame for a woman to leave her husband’s home without his permission. Go back I promise I will talk to him”
At the age of 28, my niece committed suicide by setting herself on fire leaving four children behind her.
While working as a physician in Syria, I have witnessed many crimes committed in my society under the justification of Islam.
Once, when I worked in a small village, a woman in her late 30th came to my office complaining of nausea, vomiting and back pain. An examination revealed that she was three months pregnant.
As soon as I told her the news, she collapsed on the chair and began to scream, smacking her face, “I beg you doctor, I beg you to rescue me from the mess I’m in.
My son will kill me. I don’t care about my life. I deserve to die, but I don’t want my son to dirty his hands with my blood.”
“What is wrong, Fatima?”
“I’m a widow. My husband died five years ago and left me with four children. My husband’s brother rapes me every day in exchange for feeding my children. If he knew I was pregnant he’d provoke my son into killing me rather than be exposed to public disgrace.”
“How old is your son?”
“He’s fifteen. Doctor, I’m begging you! He’s still young and I don’t want him dirtying his hands with my filthy blood!”
I sent her to see a gynecologist. When she came back to see me about two weeks later, she looked undernourished, fatigued and ill.
“What is it, Fatima?”
“I came to thank you. I got rid of the fetus, but I almost died! They performed the operation to remove the fetus without sedating me, and the pain I experienced nearly killed me.”
“He did it without an anesthetic! Why?”
“I didn’t have enough money to pay for the drugs to numb me, so the doctor had to operate without them.”
As for my own account, my husband left to America a year ahead of me. When I submitted a request for passports for my children, the officer in charge refused to grant me one on the grounds that under the Islamic Sharia law I was not considered mentally fit to be the legal guardian of my children. He therefore asked me to bring a male from my husband’s family who will agree to get my children’s passports.
No member of my husband’s family lived in our town except one of his cousins. He was an alcoholic, and because of his ill nature, my husband had never wanted to introduce him to me.
To make a long story short, I went to his house and bribed him with fifty Syrian pounds which is equal to one dollar.
As I left the immigration building, I couldn’t help but thinking of the absurdity that we, women of the Muslim world are faced with; as a medical doctor I was not fit to be the legal guardian for my children, but a drunken man with no moral worth, can affect my destiny.
It is obvious that the teaching of my faith did not coincide with my basic rights and for sure didn’t respect me as a professional woman.
For example, under Islamic Sharia, male Muslims are granted full control over their female relatives. A father can marry his daughter off at any age to any man of his choice without her consent.
Not isolated stories
Tragically, these accounts I shared with you, by all means are not isolated stories. They signify tragic stories of millions of other Muslim women all over the world, including here in Europe and in North America.
On a daily bases, there are numerous domestic abuses of Muslim women, rapes and honor killings. These stories which are frequently ignored by the so called “progressives” on the Left.
In the worst case scenario, the Lefty establishment, prosecute those brave ones who dare speaking up and expose the gloomy reality of violence against Muslim women and the harsh reality of Sharia in general.
The Left forbids our culture from labeling the Islamic discrimination and persecution of women. Obviously, as we are presently witnessing, the consequences for those who dare, are grave.
Accordingly, let me challenge those who are on the wrong side of history; how can a Muslim woman raise a fair minded child when she is oppressed herself?
Certainly, a male child that grows watching his mother being disrespected, marginalized and abused, will almost inevitably have a distorted mind capable of cruelty as was inflicted by the mob against Lara Logan.
Is that not a dilemma which affects the West’s relationship with the Muslim world?
Sadly, Muslims and their enablers will keep defying those of us who dissent. We have a choice to make. We can continue to give in or we can win over by making it clear that our freedoms and our culture and our heritage are going to be protected no matter what it takes.
In his show "Real Time” Bill Maher, an American comedian, stated last month:
“Islam is the only religion that 'kills you when you disagree with them, and they claim: 'look, we are a religion of peace… and if you disagree we'll cut your head off.”
Maher claims that “there are very few people that will call them on it."
The enemy of the free world
Well, we are here today to do just that. We are some of the very few to call them on it. We are here with courage, clarity and conviction to identify, to expose and hopefully to marginalize the enemy of the free world.
We are here to deter the destruction of our values by those who aspire to enslave us under the ruthless and shackles of Sharia.
When a woman living under Islamic Sharia immigrates to a free Western country, it can become a complete transformative path as happened to me. Now I am free.
I don’t have to allow my rights to be abused by any religious or political authority. In the United States I’m a person - equal to all others.
However, how can we expect all other Muslim women in all parts of the free world to become emancipated when there are judicial institutions that help suppress their urge for freedom by punishing those who try to protect them, as happens to individuals like Mr. Lars Hedegaard?
I for one do not take my rights for granted, and therefore I will continue to fight to protect these rights, not only for myself but for all other Muslim women.
We as citizens of the free world must have the moral aptitude to fight and protect our liberty by exposing the totalitarian abuse of Islam against women.
The enemy has unwitting or malevolent allies. We are obliged to call on those who surrender to Islam’s oppressive doctrine, those who weaken all of us and unintentionally or some deliberately cause our decline.
A war
We must realize that we are in a war. We must continue our unwavering resolve to serve as a buffer against the forces of evil. We cannot appease. We cannot compromise. We must recognize the enemy, and deter them at every pass.
We will not stifle our language. We will use the appropriate vocabulary to call things by their rightful name. We will continue to urge for moral clarity, for open intellectual discourse with precise definitions of our goals against their goals.
From now on, let us invoke the new terminology “Truthphobia,” I repeat “Truthphobia,” against those who call us Islamophobes. This is because their irrational fear of the truth is a detrimental factor for our survival as free people.
The bitter reality of Islam’s Sharia doctrine should not be ignored. Real victory can take place only in the spirit of genuine inquiry, transparency, and the fearless pursuit of truth.
It is as clear as daylight. A culture that doesn’t respect half of its population will never thrive and prosper!
Consequently, any attempt to make criticism of Islam forbidden and punishable by law is unacceptable and will be strongly resisted by all freedom lovers.
When I was living in Syria, I cried often because I suffered. Now that I am free, I still cry, for all other Muslim women all over the world.
I dream of a future when all Muslim women can savor a taste of my freedom. This is a dream that should be granted for all humanity and our job is to be unrelenting in pursuing that objective.
I challenge anyone responsible for the trial against Lars Hedegaard to reconsider the horrific consequences of such preposterous allegation against him.
Let us not revert to Europe of the Middle Ages.
Let freedom of speech prevail!
Tale holdt ved Trykkefrihedsselskabets konference, Women under Islam, d. 8. maj 2011
