The debate continues about modesty and dress code for women in Muslim world.

The large, anti-government protests in Iran that erupted in 80 cities, over an array of grievances, and gripped the country for more than a week in December and January involved among others a protest against the measures of modesty and dress code for women in society. Twentynine people, most of them women, were arrested in connection with recent protests in Iran against the compulsory Islamic veil for women, the police in Tehran said that the protesters had been “deceived” by foreign forces.

The office of Iran’s president, steering the most contentious debates over the character of the Islamic Republic, released a three-year-old report — which found that 49.8 percent of Iranians, both women and men, consider the Islamic veil a private matter and think the government should have no say in it — Let us first clarify certain commonly used terms that are discussed in the western media in an overlappingly and confused way.

1. The hijab is one name for a variety of headscarves. It is the most popular in the West as ever increasing number of Muslim women are adopting it. These consist of one or two scarves that cover the head and neck. Outside the West, this traditional head covering is worn by many Muslim women mainly in the Middle East and north African Muslim countries.

2. The veil in its linguistic meaning is a large piece of cloth that is dropped from the head to hide the face. Among Muslim women it includes proper covering of the whole body, not just the face. By various modes of practice common in Muslim world veils are of two kinds;

A. Veil with Niqab where the face is completely covered except the eyes (and forehead?). This is common among Muslim women of Gulf states and Saudi Arabia. Various forms of Burqas also fulfill this purpose nicely and are common in certain countries like Afghanistan and parts of subcontinent.

B. Veil without Niqab where face is loosely covered or sometimes not at all. These are Chaddors that are most popular in Iran and again in some parts of subcontinent.

A debate about proper way of dress for women in public is rampant in the whole Muslim world and is bound to become more virulent in the future not only because of a fast changing, highly interconnected world with fuzzy divide between roles of men and women in society but also because it touches the core issue of the very understanding of modesty and its proper modes of expression. If modesty is a cultivated attitude and a sensitivity of mind to decency that is admonished by faith in order to spare society of wild, uncivilized and obscene human behavior, then the way one dresses simply has to be the natural result of an individual’s degree of modesty and not an imposed and strictly defined dress code. It certainly should not be a regulation by the government implemented by force and punishment, for modesty is within and expresses itself naturally in how one conducts.

The West Cares About Human Life; DOES IT REALLY ?

Britain to sell jets to Saudis despite conduct of Yemen war

On the last day of a visit by the Saudi crown prince, Britain approved the sale of 48 highly advanced fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, brushing aside calls for an embargo over the kingdom’s role in Yemen’s civil war.

Human rights and arms control groups have mounted a publicity campaign and protests to stop the sale of British arms to Saudi Arabia, alleging that they are used in Yemen to kill innocent civilians. The group “Save the Children” placed a statue of a child in a bombed-out building, looking fearfully up at the sky – A powerful and moving depiction of the suffering and anguish the war has caused. Announcement of the agreement to sell the Typhoon jets came from BAE Systems, the aerospace company set to produce the aircraft, and not from either government.

The news came just after a meeting between the crown prince and Britain’s defense minister, Gavin Williamson.

The agreement signed, known as a memorandum of intent, is preliminary. But defense analysts said that working out the details for a final agreement should not be a difficult or lengthy process. The price is valued at about $14 billionsThe civil war in Yemen, which has been called the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, has killed thousands of people and displaced more than 3 million in three years of fighting. It pits Saudi Arabia’s Sunni Muslim monarchy against Yemen’s Houthi rebel movement, which is backed by Shiite Iran. Other Arab nations contribute to the Saudiled coalition and the United States provides it with logistical support.

So here we are, the U.S gives full moral and logistic support to Saudi bombings over impoverished defenseless innocent people and Britain sells Saudis fighter jets to carry out the bombings.

Hope the world notes that it is not about Houthis Vs the government of Hadi Mansour nor about Saudis Vs Iran; It is about murder of innocent people which the so called civilized west does not care.
(excerpted from New York Times)

U.S. Experts Say Why Trump Should Support Iran Deal

The Iran nuclear accord, assailed by President Trump, and his revamped retinue of advisers, received a strong endorsement Monday from a bipartisan group of more than 100 national security veterans, who said the United States gains nothing by scrapping it.

The group, including 50 retired military officers and at least four former American ambassadors to Israel, added its voice to a fractious debate over the accord, which Mr. Trump has called “the worst deal” ever.

In a statement, the group, which calls itself the National Coalition to Prevent an Iranian Nuclear Weapon, enumerated 10 reasons that preserving the accord is in the best interests of the United States.

They included the determination by United Nations inspectors that the accord is working; the importance of preserving close relations with major European allies, which all support the accord; and the possibility of reaching a nuclear agreement with North Korea, which might not negotiate if it believes that the United States abrogates international pledges.

“President Trump should maintain the U.S. commitment to the Iran nuclear deal,” the signers said in the statement. “Doing so will bring substantial benefits and strengthen America’s hand in dealing with North Korea, as well as Iran, and help maintain the reliability of America’s word and influence as a world leader. Ditching it would serve no national security purpose.”

Yet the U.S. and Israel have collided to abrogate this agreement. In a calculated move, winked upon by the U.S to go ahead, Benjamin Netanyahu, just couple of weeks before the U.S’ impending decision about continued ratification of the agreement, citing old documents from Iran of several years prior to the agreement presented a phony argument that Iran is still pursuing nuclear ambitions. This was readily applauded by Trump and Pompiau, as a pretext to withdraw from the agreement.
(excerpted from New York Times)