Exhibit A:

All throughout the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Pakistan’s impoverished western border with Afghanistan, lie the ruins of barbershops and music and video stores – symbols of Western-oriented life that religious extremists have destroyed in a growing wave of violence…In what appears to be an escalating spree over the last year, extremists have bombed at least four girls’ schools and circulated violent threats warning girls to stay at home…

As female education improves, infant mortality rates tend to decrease, family health improves, national incomes rise, and female citizens become more politically active and aware of their rights, say development experts. “You’ll be keeping half the population of Pakistan idle [if the bombings continue],” says Syed Fayyaz Ahmad, the joint education adviser of the Ministry of Education in Islamabad. “[Girls] would not add to the economic development of NWFP. If your female children are not educated, your next generation of boys and girls are affected.”…

Pakistan has one of the highest rates of female illiteracy in South Asia, at about 60 percent, and the lowest rate of primary school enrollment for girls, at somewhere between 42 and 48 percent. Those shortcomings are particularly pronounced in the NWFP, which, as of 2004, had the lowest ratio of female enrollment of any province in Pakistan, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG). In areas like the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), where the government’s presence has historically been weakest, only 1 percent of women and girls are literate.

Exhibit B:

Gaza Strip - An Islamic group threatened to behead female TV broadcasters if they don’t wear strict Islamic dress…Most of the 15 women broadcasters on government-run Palestine TV wear headscarves. But they also wear makeup and Western clothing — not considered strictly observant by extremists….

The Swords of Truth issued the statement Friday in an e-mail to news organizations. “We will cut throats, and from vein to vein, if needed to protect the spirit and moral of this nation,” the statement said. The group also accused the women broadcasters of being “without any … shame or morals.” Prior to the statement, some women broadcasters said they had received personal threats through their mobile phones.

Once we get rid of that stupid literacy and makeup, god will be really, really happy. HT: LGF

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 3rd, 2007 at 6:51 am and is filed under General, Religion, War, idiots!, radical chic. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.