Islam - Current Day > Erdogan's Ally wants 14 y/o children to be eligible for marriage

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Erdoğan’s radical Islamist ally Erbakan deems 14-y/o children

suitable for marriage

Duvar English, June 26, 2023:

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ally, radical Islamist New Welfare Party’s (YRP) leader Fatih Erbakan in 2020 stated that 14-year-old children can get “married” because they reached “sexual maturity.” His statements caused a great reaction on social media and among opposition politicians when it was resurfaced on Twitter.

Speaking on a Youtube program he participated in at the time, Erbakan said, “For years in Anatolia, our ancestors have married at the age of 14, 15, 16 and established happy homes. Since a 14-year-old has reached sexual maturity, her consent is valid. This is how it has been done in Anatolia for centuries.”

Main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) MP Gökçe Gökçen reacted to Erbakan’s statements and stated that his ideology is “the real threat to children.” She added, 

“Those who are endlessly searching for ways to have sexual relations with children have been placed on the parliament by Erdoğan. We have to raise the struggle against this terrible threat and weave a social democratic politics.”…

Turkey: Islamic party leader, an ally of Erdogan, says 14-year-old girls are suitable for marriage

JUL 3, 2023 12:00 PM BY ROBERT SPENCER

Child marriage has abundant attestation in Islamic tradition and law.

Turkey’s directorate of religious affairs (Diyanet) said in January 2018 that under Islamic law, girls as young as nine can marry.

“Islam has no age barrier in marriage and Muslims have no apology for those who refuse to accept this” — Ishaq Akintola, professor of Islamic Eschatology and Director of Muslim Rights Concern, Nigeria.

“There is no minimum marriage age for either men or women in Islamic law. The law in many countries permits girls to marry only from the age of 18. This is arbitrary legislation, not Islamic law.” — Dr. Abd Al-Hamid Al-‘Ubeidi, Iraqi expert on Islamic law.

There is no minimum age for marriage and that girls can be married “even if they are in the cradle.” — Dr. Salih bin Fawzan, prominent cleric and member of Saudi Arabia’s highest religious council.

“Islam does not forbid marriage of young children.” — Pakistan’s Council of Islamic Ideology.

These authorities say these things because hadiths that Muslims consider authentic record that Muhammad’s favorite wife, Aisha, was six when Muhammad wedded her and nine when he consummated the marriage:

“The Prophet wrote the (marriage contract) with Aisha while she was six years old and consummated his marriage with her while she was nine years old and she remained with him for nine years (i.e. till his death)” (Bukhari 7.62.88).

Another tradition has Aisha herself recount the scene:

The Prophet engaged me when I was a girl of six (years). We went to Medina and stayed at the home of Bani-al-Harith bin Khazraj. Then I got ill and my hair fell down. Later on my hair grew (again) and my mother, Um Ruman, came to me while I was playing in a swing with some of my girl friends. She called me, and I went to her, not knowing what she wanted to do to me. She caught me by the hand and made me stand at the door of the house. I was breathless then, and when my breathing became all right, she took some water and rubbed my face and head with it. Then she took me into the house. There in the house I saw some Ansari women who said, “Best wishes and Allah’s Blessing and a good luck.” Then she entrusted me to them and they prepared me (for the marriage). Unexpectedly Allah’s Apostle came to me in the forenoon and my mother handed me over to him, and at that time I was a girl of nine years of age. (Bukhari 5.58.234).

Muhammad was at this time fifty-four years old.

Marrying young girls was not all that unusual for its time, but because in Islam Muhammad is the supreme example of conduct (cf. Qur’an 33:21), he is considered exemplary in this unto today. And so in April 2011, the Bangladesh Mufti Fazlul Haque Amini declared that those trying to pass a law banning child marriage in that country were putting Muhammad in a bad light: “Banning child marriage will cause challenging the marriage of the holy prophet of Islam, [putting] the moral character of the prophet into controversy and challenge.” He added a threat: “Islam permits child marriage and it will not be tolerated if any ruler will ever try to touch this issue in the name of giving more rights to women.” The Mufti said that 200,000 jihadists were ready to sacrifice their lives for any law restricting child marriage.

Likewise the influential website Islamonline.com in December 2010 justified child marriage by invoking not only Muhammad’s example, but the Qur’an as well:

The Noble Qur’an has also mentioned the waiting period [i.e. for a divorced wife to remarry] for the wife who has not yet menstruated, saying: “And those who no longer expect menstruation among your women, if you doubt, then their period is three months, and [also for] those who have not menstruated” [Qur’an 65:4]. Since this is not negated later, we can take from this verse that it is permissible to have sexual intercourse with a prepubescent girl. The Qur’an is not like the books of jurisprudence which mention what the implications of things are, even if they are prohibited. It is true that the prophet entered into a marriage contract with A’isha when she was six years old, however he did not have sex with her until she was nine years old, according to al-Bukhari.

Other countries make Muhammad’s example the basis of their laws regarding the legal marriageable age for girls. Article 1041 of the Civil Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran states that girls can be engaged before the age of nine, and married at nine: “Marriage before puberty (nine full lunar years for girls) is prohibited. Marriage contracted before reaching puberty with the permission of the guardian is valid provided that the interests of the ward are duly observed.”

According to Amir Taheri in The Spirit of Allah: Khomeini and the Islamic Revolution (pp. 90-91), Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini himself married a ten-year-old girl when he was twenty-eight. Khomeini called marriage to a prepubescent girl “a divine blessing,” and advised the faithful to give their own daughters away accordingly: “Do your best to ensure that your daughters do not see their first blood in your house.” When he took power in Iran, he lowered the legal marriageable age of girls to nine, in accord with Muhammad’s example.

Islam - Current Day > Insane Honour Killings still happening in Islam; Honour Killings in the Palestinian Authority

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India: Muslim brothers murder their sister because

they doubted her character

MAR 22, 2023 4:00 PM 

BY ROBERT SPENCER

Jihad Watch

In the Qur’an, a mysterious figure, known as Khidr in Islamic tradition, kills a boy in an apparently random and gratuitous attack. He then explains: “And as for the boy, his parents were believers, and we feared that he would overburden them by transgression and disbelief. So we intended that their Lord should substitute for them one better than him in purity and nearer to mercy.” (18:80-81)

And according to Islamic law, “retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right.” However, “not subject to retaliation” is “a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring.” (Reliance of the Traveller o1.1-2).

Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide. The Palestinian Authority gives pardons or suspended sentences for honor murders. Iraqi women have asked for tougher sentences for Islamic honor murderers, who get off lightly now. Syria in 2009 scrapped a law limiting the length of sentences for honor killings, but “the new law says a man can still benefit from extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honour ‘provided he serves a prison term of no less than two years in the case of killing.’” And in 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that “Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values.”

Sartaj and Shahrukh murder their sister in a suspected case

of honour killing in Greater Noida: Report

OpIndia, 

March 20, 2023:

In a disturbing incident, two brothers in Greater Noida murdered their sister because they doubted her character. Prima facie the case appears to be that of a suspected honour killing, reports reveal.

DCP Central Ram Badan Singh said that on March 14, a decomposed dead body of a woman was recovered from the Hindon river in the Ecotech-3 police station area. During the investigation, the deceased was identified as Najma, daughter of Akhtar, a resident of Kakrala village.

Najma was married, but she was having a dispute with her husband. Najma was living in Surajpur in a separate room without her husband. His brothers Shahrukh and Sartaj doubted his (his character, or hers?) character.

On getting information about this, when station in-charge Sunil Dutt interrogated both the brothers on the basis of suspicion, they confessed to killing their sister. He said that on the night of March 8, he coaxed his sister Najma to a deserted place in the Bisrakh area and strangulated her to death….

Both the brothers told during interrogation that their sister had left her husband and was living separately. Because of this, various discussions were happening in society about his [sic; “her” is likely meant] character. Tired of these discussions, he killed Najma.

Because it's better to be safe than sorry? It's better to murder your sister than take the off chance that she might misbehave? What madness!

Honour killings show the ugly side of our society, OpIndia had earlier reported an incident in which a 19-year-old girl was smothered with a pillow by her brothers Tohid and Danish for reportedly having a love affair with a youth whom the latter did not approve of. The brothers learned that the victim was planning to elope with her boyfriend and marry him in court. They were infuriated over this and killed her.

Yes! Much better to be a murderer than to have your sister marry someone she loves. How that saves the family's honour can only be understood by Islamic Insanity.

Palestinian Authority gives pardons or suspended sentences

for honor murders

FEB 16, 2012 11:12 AM 

BY ROBERT SPENCER

Jihad Watch

Islamic apologists in the West continue to try to convince gullible Westerners (of which there are so very many) that honor killing really has nothing whatsoever to do with Islam, and that all evidence to the contrary is just “Islamophobia.” 91% of all honor killings occur among Muslims? Coincidence! Bad study! (Not that any good studies are offered in its place, mind you.) Jordan and Syria — and now the Palestinian Authority — have relaxed penalties for honor killings? Well, yes, but a lot of important people have spoken out against this — well, yes, no one is listening to them, but…still!

If the apologists for the Islamic character of honor killing cared about women as much as they care about covering for Islam, they would devote their energies to stamping out the attitudes within the Muslim community that give rise to honor killing, rather than demonizing those who are standing up for victimized Muslim women.

It is no accident or coincidence that Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide. A manual of Islamic law certified as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy by Al-Azhar University, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, says that “retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right.” However, “not subject to retaliation” is “a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring.” (‘Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2). In other words, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law.

Syria in 2009 scrapped a law limiting the length of sentences for honor killings, but “the new law says a man can still benefit from extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honour ‘provided he serves a prison term of no less than two years in the case of killing.'” And in 2003 the Jordanian Parliament voted down on Islamic grounds a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported that “Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values.”

Nonetheless, the media drumbeat is constant: honor killings have nothing to do with Islam. And so they continue, as no one ever challenges Muslim authorities to do anything to stop them.

Palestinian women await scrapping of honour killing

by Nasouh Nazzal for Gulf News, 

February 14 

Ramallah: The Palestinian Women’s Movement is awaiting the implementation of the reconciliation deal between Hamas and Fatah, which will pave the way for a legitimate parliament to approve the long-awaited legislation which abolishes the legal clauses that allow crimes of honour.

In an interview with Gulf News, Rawdah Baseer, an activist of the Palestinian Feminist Movement and head of the Palestinian Women’s Studies Centre, said the legislation once approved will be a key achievement for the women fighting against this menace since the 1990s.

“We resent those two clauses which led to the death of many innocent women in our land,” she said.

She said that the movement has studied the Palestinian Criminal Law, which is originally Jordanian, in detail and came up with amendments.

“An average of 12 women are killed annually in the Palestinian Territories on honour grounds,” she said. “Men are taking advantage of the law,” she stressed.

A man who kills a relative is either pardoned, given a suspended sentence or six months to three years imprisonment which is reduced further once appealed, she said. However, when a woman murders her unfaithful husband, she is given a minimum of 15 years imprisonment. “This is not acceptable any more,” she said.

“The Palestinian courts do not even investigate the women’s cases, and once the accused men claim they had acted on honour grounds, their claims are approved and sentenced accordingly,” she said. “This is unfair.”

A recent study by the Arab World Research and Development revealed that 74.5 per cent of the youth want the clauses abolished.

Bits and Bites > Violence Against Women Protesting Violence; Muscleman Breaks Sex Doll, Gets Another; Sweden's In/Out/Back In PM

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Turkish cops tear-gas women protesting violence against women

25 Nov, 2021 23:24

Demonstrators pull on a barricade during a protest against gender-based violence in Istanbul, Turkey,

November 25, 2021. ©  Reuters / Umit Bektas

Turkish riot police unleashed tear gas to disperse a large crowd of demonstrators protesting violence against women in Istanbul, as well as the government’s withdrawal from an international treaty devoted to combating it.

The massive group of protesters, reportedly numbering in the thousands, marched to Istanbul’s Taksim Square on Thursday to mark the ‘International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.’ They met a heavy police presence in the square, which was barricaded off by officers clad in heavy riot gear, who proceeded to fire tear gas on the crowd after ordering it to disperse.

Scuffles with police were captured in videos circulating online, showing officers moving in on the demonstrators to clear them from the area as tear gas wafts through the air.

Protesters were also seen carrying a colorful assortment of signs and banners, some even toting flares, while others chanted anti-government slogans and demanded an end to what’s been dubbed by some activists as ‘femicide.’ Some 345 women in Turkey have been killed in acts of gender-based violence so far this year, just shy of the 410 reported in 2020, according to ‘We Will Stop Femicide,’ a women’s rights group.

The protest, which was mirrored on a smaller scale in other cities across the country, comes after the Turkish government formally withdrew from an international treaty meant to address violence against women in July. Known as the Istanbul Convention, the pact was originally negotiated in the same city in 2011, but President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decision to pull out of the deal has been sharply criticized both by local activists as well as foreign leaders, with US President Joe Biden dubbing the move “deeply disappointing.” 

Ankara, for its part, claimed the convention had been “hijacked” by “people attempting to normalize homosexuality,” which it said was “incompatible with Turkey’s social and family values.” Nonetheless, the government insisted it would not “give up on its fight against domestic violence” and would “continue protecting the safety and the rights of all women.”

But like many Islamic countries, they would prefer their women to be invisible in public and silent.

Kazakh bodybuilder takes second sex-doll wife on honeymoon

– after first bride ‘broke’

26 Nov, 2021 18:39

Yuri Tolochko shared the news on his social media account. © Instagram @ yurii_tolochko

Bodybuilder Yuri Tolochko, who has shot to online notoriety after 'marrying' a sex doll, has shared details of his honeymoon with his second plastic bride Luna after the happy couple spent a week lapping up the sights in Bulgaria.

The hulking Tolochko, who has garnered well over 100,000 followers on Instagram, recently announced that he has moved on from his first wife Margot - who was also an inanimate sex doll - after their relationship quite literally fell apart when he announced that she "broke" shortly after their nuptials. 

Tolochko said at the time that he had sent his bride away for repairs - but apparently had his eye caught by a new disposable companion after the  iron-pumping lothario posted photographs to social media of his week-long honeymoon with his new bride Luna.

"I did not get the chance to enjoy a honeymoon with Luna until now. The pandemic changed everyone’s plans massively so when the chance came to go to Bulgaria for work, I was happy I could take Luna," he said recently.

"It was a work trip, but it was also so romantic that I consider it a honeymoon as well. We stayed in the capital Sofia for about a week and it was fabulous."

Photographs posted online show a smiling Yuri showing off his bride at various places in the Bulgarian capital, such as at a restaurant - and another more X-rated snap of the two in what appears to be a bathtub.

Luna, who was unavailable for comment, maintains a steely stare in each of the shots.

"We met a lot of people during my work time and also went out to restaurants and took advantage of the hotel room," Tolochko added.

"Everyone’s reaction was different, but not negative. Kids loved Luna a lot. This sensation was everywhere, on the bus, in public places, and many people approached us for photos. Someone asked for my permission to touch Luna because they had never seen a sex doll before."

He even said that he noticed some wayward glances from several other men, particularly when Luna was wearing skimpy attire.

"Luna wore a very short skirt and men liked to watch her as she sat on my lap,” he said.

"I like it when people look at us and their mood lifts. When the pandemic began, this was especially important. People lived in fear and often came to my Instagram page to smile and cheer themselves up."

Tolochko added that as his fame has risen, so too have comments about his unique sex life - and while he says that no one has said anything to him in person, he claims there was a lot of online abuse from St. Petersburg.

"I sometimes get a negative reaction on the internet, but no one has ever shown it in person," he said.

"There was a bigger backlash before than there is now. Also, most of the hate came from netizens in Saint Petersburg in Russia.

"I used to have social media accounts in Russian, but then there was too much negativity."

This time around, though, Yuri said that he opted to not exchange rings with Luna after he had his heart broken by Margot (we shudder to think what she had broken, by the way) - and this time opted for a more cost effective approach.

"I did exchange rings with Margot so maybe I will come up with some kind of symbolic jewelry that we could all wear. We need to discuss it," he said.

"After Margot, I decided to not throw any more lavish weddings."

Sweden’s first-ever woman PM voted back in days after resigning

29 Nov, 2021 14:32

Magdalena Andersson as new prime minister on November 29, 2021.

©Jonas Ekstromer / TT News Agency via REUTERS

The Swedish parliament has again voted in Magdalena Andersson as prime minister. Last week, she resigned the position the same day she assumed it and became the first-ever female head of her country’s government.

Andersson, a former finance minister, threw in the towel just seven hours after her election five days ago. She announced her decision after a junior member withdrew from the minority ruling coalition following its failure to adopt a new budget and its approval of a competing variant proposed by right-wing parties.

On Monday, she returned to the helm of an even smaller minority government, formed only by the Swedish Social Democratic Party, which she has led since early November. It has 100 seats – less than a third of the total 349 seats in the parliament.

Her candidacy was supported by 101 legislators and rejected by 173, but still approved. Under Swedish law, the speaker may nominate a person for PM up to four times before a snap general election is called, and if the same candidate is proposed a second time, an absolute majority of 175 votes is needed to reject him or her, which was the case with Andersson.

Sweden was the last of the Nordic nations to elect a female head of the government. Since 2014, the country has rotated three different cabinets led by Andersson’s predecessor, Stefan Löfven. The latest of them was installed in July and automatically dismissed when its head resigned earlier in November. A new general election is scheduled for September 2022 and is expected to determine Sweden’s course on contentious issues such as immigration.

Islam - Current Day - Banning Child Brides is Fighting Against Allah

Most 'Islam' - "Current Day" or "This Day in History" posts are found on my other blog -

https://northwoodsministries.blogspot.com/ 

Articles dealing with child sexual abuse will be found on this blog

Turkey: “Banning Early Marriages is

Fighting Against Allah”

BY UZAY BULUT
Jihad Watch

A Muslim group in Turkey has set up a platform called “Turkey’s Platform of Family Assembly for Young Marriages” to defend child marriages and expressed their opposition to women’s rights advocates and international conventions, accusing them of “increasing prostitution and violence.”

In a written statement, the President of the Platform, Adem Çevik, said that “to prohibit early marriages is to fight against Allah” and added: “One who is smart does not fight against sunnetullah [Allah’s order].”

Referring to Ottoman Sultan Mehmet Mohammed, whom Turks call “the Conqueror” and who invaded Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453, Çevik said:

“The Conqueror Sultan Mehmet, one of the founders of our country, is always shown as an example and we have been raised with statements such as ‘My daughter, you are old enough to give birth to a Conqueror’ or “My son, you are the same age when the Sultan Conqueror ascended the throne.'”

He continued: “When our grandfathers were at around the age of 14, they protected our homeland, sacrificing their lives and got martyred in order to protect their families during the occupation of our country, during the [1915-16] war in Dardanelles, in the war of liberation and during the occupation of our country on July 15 [2016 coup attempt]. Our state has the Ministry of Youth, and our nation has a youth festival [on May 19], but there is no concept of youth in our laws. Those under the age of 18 are seen as ‘children’. Isn’t it an eclipse of conscience to expect responsibility for our families and for our state from our young people to whom we do not give responsibility by marrying them off young?”

Çevik went on to say that “young marriages were banned in 2002 by violating the laws of Allah.” He continued:

“The punishment of [early marriages] and the treatment of young fathers as ‘rapists’ as of June 28, 2014 is just an eclipse of reason. To punish young marriages is to fight against fitra [an Islamic concept which means the original state in which humans are created by Allah] and against Allah. One who is smart does not fight against Sunnatullah [Allah’s order]. Those who prohibit young marriages by launching a war against fitra threaten our national security and future by serving the immoral and sexless community projects with no families supported by global evil forces. They also contribute to an increase of sexual perverts. Our president [Recep Tayyip Erdogan] complains of late marriage, but does not encourage young marriage; instead, he punishes them.”

Çevik targeted women’s rights advocates struggling for gender equality.

“The operation under the guise of gender equality is an operation to turn [our nation] into homosexuals. The fight launched under the mask of protecting children from abuse, and women from violence and discrimination increases prostitution and violence.”

Cevik also opposed international women’s and children’s rights conventions such as the Council of Europe Convention on Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse, also known as “the Lanzarote Convention”, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, monitored by the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence Against Women and Domestic Violence, also known as the Istanbul Convention. He claimed that such conventions “promote prostitution”:

“Slandering those who marry young and those who set up a family at the age of 14 is the biggest persecution against our children and young mothers and fathers by the state,” he said.

“While young marriage is prohibited with the Istanbul Convention, CEDAW and the Lanzarote Convention and so on, prostitution is encouraged. Honorable people should be just as brave as the dishonorable. These actions constitute the heaviest violence against our women and children.”

Professor Muttalip Kutluk Özgüven of Istanbul Aydın University made a similar statement in defense of child pregnancies in May. Özgüven argued in a television program that girls between the ages of 12 and 17 “have excellent bodies” and “are in the ideal time to give birth.”

Scientists and sane human rights advocates, however, are in full agreement that child marriage has devastating consequences on girls’ health, and those who are victims of child marriage are deprived of their fundamental rights to health, education and safety. According to the organization “Girls, Not Brides”:

Child marriage is any formal marriage or informal union where one or both of the parties are under 18 years of age. Each year, 12 million girls are married before the age of 18. That is 23 girls every minute. Nearly 1 every 3 seconds.

Child brides are neither physically nor emotionally ready to become wives and mothers. They face more risks of experiencing dangerous complications in pregnancy and childbirth, contracting HIV/AIDS and suffering domestic violence. With little access to education and economic opportunities, they and their families are more likely to live in poverty.

According to the United Nations International Children’s Fund (UNICEF),

The legal age of marriage in Turkey is 18 and children can marry at the age of 17 with the consent of their parents or legal guardians. Children at the age of 16 can also marry, with special permission from the courts ‘under exceptional circumstances and on vital grounds.’

Despite the rising average age of marriage, child marriage remains an on-going challenge in Turkey and reflects a pattern of gender inequality that reinforces stereotypical roles for girls and curtails their education, compromises their health, and exposes them to the risk of violence and poverty.

Ankara, Turkey

Child marriage and child pregnancies are still major problems across Turkey. According to the 2018 data by Turkey’s Statistics Institute (TUIK), 167 children below the age of 15 gave birth and 11,636 children in the 15-17 age group became mothers.

Then why does the newly established “Family Platform” in Turkey so passionately advocate for child marriages and see its prohibition as “a war against Allah”?

Islamic tradition records that Muhammad, the founder of Islam, married Aisha when she was six and consummated his marriage with her when she was nine. At the time of the “consummation,” he was 54 years old.

Similarly, Umar ibn al-Khattab, the second caliph of Islam, married Umm Kulthum bint Ali, granddaughter of Muhammad and the daughter of Caliph Ali, when she was between 10 and 12 years old and he was around 47.

Islamic scriptures also clearly advocate the practice, which has become a long-lasting tradition in many Muslim communities.

As the “Girls, Not Brides” organization states, “child brides can be found in every region in the world, from the Middle East to Latin America, South Asia to Europe.” However, trying to put an end to child marriages is doubly difficult in Muslim communities, because Islamic theology and law openly encourage the practice.

That’s why a political system or culture shaped by Islamic theology systematically makes children and women suffer by sanctioning child marriages, abuse and violence. Those in the West who are so clueless as to call critics of Islam “Islamophobes” would thus be well-advised to try thinking about what kind of a culture Islamic sharia law universally creates for young girls and women.

Uzay Bulut is a Turkish journalist and political analyst formerly based in Ankara.

Rape of 2 y/o; CSA Increasing in Turkey; Horrific Child Porn; One Survivor's Story on Today's Global PnP List

Second Aussie man charged over rape of

2-year-old girl in Tennant Creek

The Northern Territory town of Tennant Creek with a population of just under 3000. Violence is rampant in the town. Photo / GettyThe Northern Territory town of Tennant Creek with a population of just under 3000. Violence is rampant in the town. Photo / Getty

news.com.au 

By: Megan Palin

A second person has been charged over the rape of a 2-year-old girl in Tennant Creek earlier this year.

The accused 25-year-old man was yesterday charged with sexual intercourse without consent relating to the incident on February 15, according to Northern Territory Police. It comes after a 24-year-old man was also charged with the same offence, in relation to the same incident, in February.

An independent report by NT Children's Commissioner Colleen Gwynne into the alleged rape of the little girl found she suffered "significant and painful" injuries and required a blood transfusion. After the alleged rape, the child was medically evacuated to Alice Springs before being transferred to Adelaide Women and Children's hospital the next day.

The heavily redacted version of the 102-page report, tabled in Parliament earlier this month, revealed harm was a foreseeable risk that could have been managed or mitigated.

The NT Children's Commissioner report found there had been 35 domestic violence incidents recorded against the parents, including eight aggravated assault convictions for one of them, and more than 150 recorded interactions with police.

The toddler and her four siblings had been the subject of 16 years of investigations into physical and sexual abuse and neglect, in the lead-up to the alleged rape.

The girl, who is now 3 years old, and one of her siblings were removed from their mother's care by the Department of Child Protection South Australia on April 5.

Fifty-two child protection notifications relating to the child or her siblings were documented between 2002 and 2018, according to the report.

Police "had also conducted investigations in relation to sexual and physical abuse upon her siblings" prior to the alleged sexual assault.

"Prior to the birth of C1 [the child], Territory Families had available to it an abundance of evidence relating to the substantial neglect and numerous harms suffered by all of her older siblings," the report read.

"This included the fact that they themselves sought safety and regularly self-placed with different extended family to avoid return to the care of P1 [a parent].

"All possible harm types have been identified for these children", including exposure to domestic violence and parental substance abuse, lack of education, neglect, emotional harm, physical harm and sexual abuse.

During the time 52 child protection notifications had been recorded, the NT had gone through two major child protection reports, the royal commission into youth detention and child protection and the federal intervention.

One of the notifications — received just four months before the alleged rape — related to one of the girl's sisters and alleged a man aged between 40 and 50 was "buying young girls clothes and taking them to a hotel room".

"This investigation has identified that agencies and service providers continue to work in silos to the detriment of the safety and wellbeing of children," the report said.

In its response to Ms Gwynne's report, Territory Families wrote it "refutes the finding that 'it was foreseeable that (the girl) was at risk of sexual assault'".

In a shocking admission, Territory Families claimed the risk faced by the little girl before the alleged rape was "not dissimilar" to many other open child protection investigations.

If the approach suggested in the report was used that would result in more kids being taken from their families, it said.

In February, Territory Families reported "no specific concerns that came to Territory Families about particular harm to this child of a sexual nature".

The 25-year-old man charged today over the alleged assault has been remanded in custody to face court on July 26.

"Sex Crime Detectives are carrying out an ongoing investigation into the incident," an NT Police statement read.

Sexual abuse against children is increasing in Turkey

The number of child abuse victims in Turkey has increased 33 percent in the last four years and increased human trafficking has led to a rise in child prostitution according to a recent study on child abuse, Milliyet newspaper reported on Sunday.

More than 21,000 children were referred to Child Monitoring Centers in Turkey between January 2011 and May 2016, 85 percent of them girls. According to the report, prepared by Oğuz Polat from Acıbadem University, between 2016 - 2017 2,487 female and 124 male children aged under 11 were victims of sexual violence. Among older children, aged between 12 and 14, abuse victims numbered 3,688 girls and 563 boys.

Polat told Milliyet that Syrian refugee girls were being sold to older man in return for a dowry. “In Turkey, human trafficking and consequently child abductions and child prostitution have been increasing. The data on child abuse is quite limited. There is no data available for some cases,” Polat said.

He added that organised human trafficking was one of those cases and as a result it was difficult to access data on Syrian child abuse victims. 

In January 2018, news reports on child pregnancies sparked outrage, largely reflected in social media, in Turkey. According to reports, 115 girls, including 39 from Syria were treated in a single hospital in Istanbul in less than five months.

Scottish paedophile downloaded horrific child porn and animal sadism images

Graham Murray, 33, searched for images of pre-teens and bestiality on the internet, Ayr Sheriff Court heard.

By Sarah Hilley

A paedophile downloaded child sex abuse images and files featuring animals.

Graham Murray, 33, searched for images of pre-teens and bestiality on the internet, Ayr Sheriff Court heard.

Murray smiled as he left court despite being added to the sex offenders’ register in the dock.

Police raided his home in Church Court, Ayr, and seized computers as part of an investigation.

Officers found horrific child porn and depraved images depicting animal sadism among a stash of 2,067 indecent files.

Murray possessed three images of animal sadism in the most serious A category. They involved animals being hurt for sexual pleasure.

A total of 1,682 images were unique.

Depute fiscal Jason Bell said cybercrime experts discovered Murray had searched for bestiality and pre-teen youngsters as he binged on abusive images. Mr Bell said pictures showed “extreme pornography”.

The content was found on two hard drives and two computers seized from his home in 2015. After the seizure, Murray was taken to a police station and replied ‘no comment’ to every question put to him.

Sheriff Desmond Leslie ordered the preparation of a criminal justice social work report to find out more about his background.

The sheriff told Murray: “You are registered as a sex offender on an interim basis.”

He is due back in court next month for sentencing and was released on bail.

The 33-year-old pled guilty to possessing indecent photographs of children between January 11, 2011 and March 15, 2015.

He admitted possessing extreme pornographic images between March 2011 and March 2015 showing sexual activity with animals.

The door-knock that brought back years of abuse

One Survivor's Story

By Andrew Bomford

Mark's first day at Grafton Close, a council-run children's home, was in December 1980

A knock on the door by two detectives changed everything for Mark, bringing back the horrors of sexual abuse he had suffered as a child. Like other survivors of child abuse, he says he found it hard to get any support afterwards.

The black and white photo of Mark was taken in December 1980 on his first day at Grafton Close, a council-run children's home in south-west London. Weighing just 5st 8lb (78 lbs) and measuring just 5ft 2in tall, he looks younger than his 14 years. His young life was already troubled and it was about to get a lot worse.

Now, 38 years later, Mark is still dealing with the consequences.

"When I was a kid, I was as kind-hearted a child as you can possibly imagine," he says. "What happened to that child is so horrendously wrong, and it's horrendously wrong that it should just be allowed to continue."

Mark was sexually abused by a manager at the children's home. Other children were abused there too and some were taken elsewhere to be abused.

Although he was small and vulnerable, Mark was a very bright and articulate boy, who managed to cope by outsmarting people. "I used language as a weapon," he says.

He had few qualifications but in his 20s and 30s made a successful career for himself working in commercial radio sales.

He explains his coping strategy as managing to lock away his terrible childhood traumas in a box marked: "Do not open ever." But it all came crashing to a halt in January 2013 when the police came knocking on his door.

As Mark re-lived the traumatic events of his youth, he became very anxious and suffered panic attacks

At the time, the UK was going through a collective panic over child abuse.

It was not long after the revelations about Jimmy Savile, and the police were investigating a series of allegations about high-profile paedophiles operating in Westminster during the 1970s and 1980s.

The visit, by two officers from the Metropolitan Police, to Mark's house in the Manchester area came out of the blue. During the visit - and in a subsequent formal interview - they asked about the abuse he suffered.

Mark said his carefully constructed mental box was now in ruins - its dark secrets scattered over the floor for everyone to see. He says the police left him to deal with the consequences, and offered no support.

"I went through 18 months to two years of deep, deep depression," he says. "It's like you're gradually walking through a tunnel, and your friends become further away - they visit less.

"You've got a choice - a choice to either fight to get back to the light, or let it drift away. I fought to get back to the light."

Mark says he suffered from suicidal thoughts, and became very anxious. He suffered panic attacks in public places, and was terrified of people even walking past his front door.

Shortly after the police visit he discovered to his horror that someone had posted the names of a list of child abuse victims online, and that his name was listed among them. Another post described him wrongly as a "rent boy".

Mark became embroiled in a long battle with the police to get them to force the websites to remove the postings, but the police failed to act. He eventually managed to get them removed himself.

The man who abused him was charged with sexual offences, but he died shortly before the case came to court. Mark would have been a victim and witness at the trial but never got his day in court.

Clinical psychologist Vanesssa Fay says she helped Mark work through some "very self-critical beliefs"

He has recently completed a 24-week course of Cognitive Analytic Therapy, delivered by clinical psychologist Vanessa Fay, of the Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust.

"That knock on the door from the police changed everything for Mark. He couldn't push it down anymore, and how painful it is. He wasn't aware of how complicated and nuanced that impact can be on relationships, and how he related to himself," she says.

Mark has been diagnosed as suffering from Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), also known as Complex Trauma. He says he managed to access a course of treatment only after a relentless struggle with his GP for support.

Complex Trauma is poorly understood, rarely recognised, and few psychologists are trained to treat it. The condition is not even officially recognised but is expected to be included as a distinct category of PTSD in an international classification system known as ICD-11, published by the World Health Organization.

Bryony Farrant, chief psychologist to the independent Child Abuse Inquiry, said official recognition will make a big difference to survivors of abuse and therapists.

"It would mean professionals will need to be trained and have an understanding of complex trauma - what it looks like, what causes it, and identified treatments and support. But for victims and survivors it would be particularly important because often with the abuse they have experienced, part of it is about secrecy, about that person being silenced, and disempowered."

Mark blames the police for "re-traumatising" him and failing to offer support. He is most upset with their failure to deal with the online postings naming him publicly as a child abuse victim.

He made a series of complaints to the police and the Independent Police Complaints Commission, and the Metropolitan Police eventually apologised. They admitted their systems were at fault and he should have had more support. But they said no individual officer was at fault and there was no police misconduct.

The Met said in a statement to the BBC that officers are trained to be sensitive to victims, and they are directed to support agencies.

11 million survivors in the UK

Napac - the National Association for People Abused in Childhood - says there are more than 11 million adult survivors of child abuse in the UK, and they deserve much better specialist support.

Research by the NSPCC in 2011 found that 25% of 18-24 year olds suffered severe maltreatment including sexual abuse as children.

Mark Samaru believes his therapy has helped him process the ordeal he went through. He is also very aware that most survivors get nowhere near the support he has fought to get.

"It's a measure of our society how we treat the most vulnerable," he says. "Nobody who's been abused in childhood deserves it, and yet they all deserve as much support as society can give them. And they're not getting it."

Official Turkish Body Said it was OK for Girls to Marry at 9, Claims it was Only Following Islam

The Caliphication of Turkey

Turkish schoolchildren in Ankara / Reuters / Umit Bektas

Turkey’s opposition have demanded a parliamentary investigation into the Directorate of Religious Affairs, an influential government department, after it proclaimed that Islamic Law approved of boys marrying at 12 and girls at 9.

In an online religious glossary intended for the public released earlier this week, Diyanet, as the body is known, stated that these are the earliest ages for children to reach adolescence, and once the threshold of emotional and physical maturity is crossed, they must be allowed to marry “to save themselves from adultery.”

Child rape is preferable to adultery in Islam.

The statement ignited an immediate firestorm of opposition from politicians, women's rights activists, and secularists.

"The Turkish Civil Code clearly states that adulthood begins at the age of 18. Early marriages violate children's rights, women's rights, human rights. As CHP MPs we ask parliament to investigate child marriages," said Murat Bakan, a deputy from the main opposition party on Twitter.

In the city of Trabzon, female protesters staged a demonstration holding placards reading, “Stop exploitation of children!” while in Izmir, the banners proclaimed, “Child marriage is a crime.”

The legal marriage age in Turkey is 18, with exceptions for 17-year-olds with parental consent, and 16 year-olds with a court-issued permit.

Diyanet has taken down its original entry, clarifying that it “had never approved child marriages and never will” and insisting it was merely interpreting Islamic scriptures. It also emphasized that “consent” was a necessary condition of any union.

A nine year old cannot give consent!

But the outrage, which has included calls and a Twitter hashtag campaign for Diyanet to be shut down, highlights the long-running controversies of underage marriage and Islamization in Turkey.

An academic study last year, estimated that as many as one in three Turkish marriages involve a partner who is under 18. The vast majority of the children involved are women, who are disproportionately likely to be poor, illiterate, living in rural areas, and later subjected to abuse and exploitation.

As if they could give consent!!!

There is concern that in conjunction with November’s mufti law – in which the ruling Islamist AKP party allowed sanctioned clerics, rather than state officials, to register marriages – will legitimize traditional child bride unions, reversing decades of progress.

Meanwhile, Diyanet, which was once a secular watchdog that oversaw restrictions on religious proselytizing, has, according to its critics, morphed into a powerful propaganda tool for the Islamist government.

Erdogan is slowly, patiently tuning Turkey into his own Caliphate.

Its budget has ballooned under former PM and current President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. It has attracted scorn for its published rulings, including a (later withdrawn) fatwa that stated a father can desire his daughter, and another, that said it was sufficient for a man to “see his wife as his mother or sister” to divorce her.

Europe: Muslim Atrocities against Women? So What!

by Uzay Bulut
The Gatestone Institute

"Domestic Violence is not a family matter" reads a
municipal public service ad in Canakkale, Turkey.

It happened again last week. Two Turkish nationals in Schwerin, Germany were arrested for raping a 13-year-old girl after forcing themselves into her home.

Recently, a judge in Germany acquitted a Turkish drug dealer of raping one of his customers last August. He had forced himself on her for four hours and left her incapacitated for weeks. He told the judge that in the culture from where he came, what she "had experienced as rape" might be considered merely "wild sex."

What "culture" is this?

According to the Turkish women's rights organization "We Will Stop the Murders of Women," which publishes monthly reports, in March of this year alone, 35 women were killed; 14 others were exposed to sexual violence, and 63 children were molested. Many children, the report said, had been sexually abused for years, and often attempted suicide.

The report also stated that the murder of women in Turkey -- 63% percent of which is committed by husbands, boyfriends, fathers, brothers or sons -- is spurred more than half the time by women; it is supposedly their fault: they actually wanted to make decisions about their lives, such as getting a divorce, before they were murdered.

Worse, nearly a third of those are classified by authorities as "suspicious murders," perpetrated by "unknown assailants."

Torturing women to death is also increasingly widespread, as well as killing young children along with their mothers. One case involved a man who slit the throats of his ex-wife and their five-year-old daughter.

The 2015 film Dying to Divorce examines the cases of Turkish women murdered by their husbands after asking for a divorce.

As above, crimes against girls and women are often shrugged off by Turkey's criminal justice system. One case in point is of a man acquitted by a judge in Eskisehir; the man was accused by his cousin of repeated rape and death threats, from the time the victim was 13 years old. After a nine-month trial and massive evidence against him, the man was acquitted.

Although crimes against women take place all over the world, practices such as sexual enslavement and stoning to death are far more widespread in Islamic societies, where they are also socially and legally tolerated -- as rooted in Islamic scripture. The Quran, for instance, allows men to beat his wives.

Tragically, Europe, when Muslims are the perpetrators, seems to be adopting the sharia approach to rape.

Britain's The Independent reported in October:

A man who raped a 10-year-old boy at a swimming pool in Austria has had his conviction overturned after judges found he may have believed the child consented. Police said the 20-year-old Iraqi refugee, who has not been named, assaulted his victim in a toilet cubicle at the Theresienbad swimming pool in Vienna on 2 December last year.

The child reported the rape to a lifeguard and his attacker was arrested at the scene, reportedly telling officers in initial interviews that he was experiencing a 'sexual emergency' after not having sex in four months. In June, he was jailed for a minimum of six years for rape and aggravated sexual abuse of a minor, and ordered to pay €4,700 (£3,700) compensation to the boy's family.

Speaking to local media, the victim's mother revealed her son had been 'screaming and crying every night' since the attack and had talked of suicide.

This came from the UK's Daily Mail:

A young left-wing German politician has admitted she lied to police about the racial background of three men who raped her in case it triggered reprisals against refugees in her country.

Selin Gören, the national spokeswoman of the left-wing youth movement Solid, was attacked by three men in January in the city of Mannheim where she works as a refugee activist.

The 24-year-old was ambushed late at night in a playground where she said she was forced to perform a sex act on her attackers.

After the assault, she went straight to the police -- but she did not tell them the ethnic make-up of the men, that they were speaking Arabic or Farsi.

Selin, aware of the backlash that migrants suffered after the events in Cologne on New Year's Eve - when hundreds of women were sexually assaulted and robbed by marauding gangs of immigrant youths - instead said she was robbed and said her attackers spoke German.

Now she has told Germany's Spiegel magazine why she lied...[because she] did not want to stoke 'more hatred against migrants in Germany.'

These examples are merely a sampling of what is becoming commonplace across Europe. In the name of human rights, inclusion, diversity and equality, "enlightened" activists and judicial authorities are apologizing for and excusing Muslim criminals for behavior that would not be tolerated from anyone else -- and that should not be tolerated.

By overlooking or justifying Islamic atrocities, Europeans are not only endangering innocent women and children; they are actually encouraging rape and other forms of violence. Meanwhile, they are also complicit in destroying Western values.

If one such value is multiculturalism, sadly -- contrary to "progressive" belief -- not all cultures are necessarily equal. Those cultures in which women and children as are viewed as property deserve no respect, and certainly not preferential treatment.

Do these judges work for sharia courts or for secular European courts?

By overlooking or justifying Islamic atrocities, European judges are endangering innocent women.

What kind of a message do these judges give to Muslim and other criminals in Europe with their decisions? These court rulings are an open call to Muslim men in Europe to rape women, children, anyone they like. What will a society be like to live in if the courts will be on the side of the rapists and they will not be held accountable?

Why not publicize that if people decide to move to a country, they must respect the citizens and laws of that country? Bringing the primitive aspects of one's culture to a host country should not be encouraged or tolerated. Rape is always rape, assault is always assault, no matter who the perpetrator is. Western countries must stop tolerating Muslim criminals because of their religion. That is not wise public policy or even justice. Cultures and religions that do not respect women and others do not deserve to be respected.

And certainly, if it were Christians doing this evil against women and children and claiming it was their right because of their religion, there would be Hell to pay. But because it's Islam, it is tolerated as the 1400 young, white girls from Rotherham can tell you, or the hundreds, if not thousands from around the UK who have been groomed, raped, and prostituted by Pakistanis with impunity for decades - sacrificed on the altar of political correctness and stupidity.

Unfortunately, these extremely basic truths have been largely ignored. The politically correct multiculturalists have created an environment in which some Europeans have forgotten what it means to stand up for reason, truth and justice- perhaps out of fear of being called "racist"; or the very misguided desire to "prevent a backlash against Muslims." It would be nice if Muslims would help to prevent the "frontlash."

By tolerating Muslim criminals in the name of human rights, tolerance, inclusion, diversity, or equality, however, these judges or activists are actually destroying those values. By taking the side of the rapists and becoming complicit in their crimes, they are encouraging rapists and turning everyone -- including children -- into potential victims.

Trying to justify rapes and other crimes committed by Muslims is an attack against the safety and dignity of everyone.

Uzay Bulut, a Turkish journalist and political analyst, is a fellow at the Middle East Forum.