Showing posts with label FGM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FGM. Show all posts

Friday, June 25, 2021

NEW BOOK: The Cancer of Civilization Jihad

 


My newest book, The Cancer of Civilization Jihad has been released on Amazon and will soon be released to be in your local bookstores. If you have liked the in depth research into the social norms of the faith structure Islam, in this blog you will enjoy 20 chapters on the topic in this book! I love research, and this book is my best work yet! It is my hope and dream to get into different translations so it can be read around the world!

Get your copy here!

https://www.amazon.com/Cancer-Civilization-Jihad-Paul-Sutliff/dp/0578885271  

Please support my work by giving to my patreon account.

https://www.patreon.com/user?u=13022797 




Please support my work by giving through PayPal or by sending a check to Paul Sutliff, PO Box 12846, 4455 Lake Avenue, Rochester, NY 14612.

Saturday, July 11, 2020

Islamic Social Norms and FGM


On January 30th of this year, a 12-year-old girl in Egypt died as a result of her parents having Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) performed on her. Egypt has had a law outlawing the practice since 2008. The parents have been charged.  This law was written to protect females because Islamic social norms permit and encourage this practice.

Ian Askew
According to Ian Askew, World Health Organization Director for the Department of Reproductive Health and Research:

FGM describes all procedures that involve the partial or total removal of external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.  It has no health benefits.

More than 200 million girls and women alive today are living with FGM and many are at risk of suffering the associated negative health consequences as a result.


These include death, severe bleeding and problems urinating.  Longer-term consequences range from cysts and infections to complications in childbirth and increased risk of newborn deaths.


FGM is a grave violation of the human rights of girls and women.

Another term used for FGM is female circumcision.  Some countries prefer the term FGC, as it is seen as “more neutral.”  (The “C” being a reference to “cutting.”)  This “more neutral” term allows their medical personnel to package FGM into the “birth package.”  Ebony Ridell Bamber, the head of advocacy and policy at Orchid Project, a UK-based NGO working towards ending FGM, states that.  "It really contributes to legitimizing and entrenching the practice even further."


In Islam, legitimization comes when shariah, Islamic law, endorses and promotes a practice.  Under shariah, female circumcision is required of Muslim females. This is documented in Reliance of the Traveller



e4.3   Circumcision is obligatory (O: for both men and women.  For men it consists of removing the prepuce from the penis, and for women, removing the prepuce (Ar. Bazr) of the clitoris (n: not the clitoris itself, as some mistakenly assert).  (A: Hanbalis hold that circumcision of women is not obligatory but sunna, while Hanafis consider it a mere courtesy to the husband.)"

Islamic scholars have been found using this piece to declare to non-Muslims that shariah does not agree with FGM, going so far as to claim it is unIslamic if carried out to the extreme and totally removing the clitoris:

Female circumcision, known pejoratively in its extreme form as female genital mutilation or cutting, is not prescribed in the Quran and there are no authentic prophetic traditions recommending the practice.  The basis in Islamic law is that it is not permissible to cause bodily harm and any such practice of female circumcision proven to be harmful would be unlawful.

This is very deceptive.  Let’s look at what the abbreviations mean in the above section of shariah:

A: ...  comment by Sheikh 'Abd al-Wakil Durubi
Ar.     Arabic
n: ...  remark by the translator
O: ...  excerpt from the commentary of Sheikh 'Umar Barakat

Taking the commentary of the translator out, the passage now reads:

e4. 3    Circumcision is obligatory (O: for both men and women.  For men it consists of removing the prepuce from the penis, and for women, removing the prepuce (Ar.  Bazr) of the clitoris.   

Many other hadiths also back up the obligation for FGM under Shariah.  For example:

Aishah narrated that: the Prophet said: "When the circumcised meets the circumcised then Ghusl [full-body ritual purification] is required." (Jami` at-Tirmidhi Vol. 1 Book 1 #109 )
Yahya related to me from Malik from Ibn Shihab from Said ibn al- Musayyab that Umar ibn al-Khattab and Uthman ibn Affan and A'isha, the wife of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, used to say, "When the circumcised part touches the circumcised part, ghusl is obligatory." (Muwatta Malik Book 2, Hadith 73)
Abu Huraira: Allah's Messenger said, "No child is born but has the Islamic Faith, but its parents turn it into a Jew or a Christian.  It is as you help the animals give birth.  Do you find among their offspring a mutilated one before you mutilate them yourself.” (Sahih al-Bukhari 6599, 6600)
To say that FGM only happens in third-world countries ignores the sad and sorry truth that several countries have passed laws forbidding this cruelty to their children. Egypt passed a law against FGM in 2008 and was amended in 2016. But by 2015, a “government survey discovered that 87% of Egyptian women and girls aged between 15 and 49 have been mutilated, or as the Egyptian government put it, “circumcised.”

February 6th  of this year was the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation. This annual day of awareness was commemorated this year by the German news source DW.com’s article, “Female genital mutilation feels 'like living in a dead body' by Shadia Abdelmoneim, which describes how a midwife performed FGM on her without her consent after the birth of her third child in Sudan:
It led to a lengthy period of shock thereafter where she found it difficult to trust anybody, but Shadia also vividly recalls the moment she realized what had happened.

"I wanted to go to the toilet, but something wasn't right.  I couldn't walk and was in considerable pain.  When I saw what she had done, I was shocked.  She'd cut everything open and then sewn it closed.  I had no idea what to do.”
Shadia, already fighting against female genital mutilation and for women's rights as an activist in Sudan, was in her mid 30s at the time.  She started living in a constant state of fear for her three daughters; she could barely let them out of her sight.  

"How could women do something like that to one another, how?" she asks, her eyes welling up with tears.  "Being circumcised is like living in a dead body.”

Dr.  Cornelia Strunz, who works at the Desert Flower Center, met Shadia when she came to the center for help, said Shadia needed surgery to help her live with this mutilation. According to Dr.  Strunz, there are many possible problems that result from FGM.

Many women have problems emptying their bladder after FGM.  Menstrual blood can't drain properly.  For some, sex becomes practically impossible.  Women can also develop fistulas -- connections between two body parts which should not exist at all in normal circumstances.  One example would be a link between the vagina and rectum, leading to them passing stools through the vagina.  Obviously, that's not very easy to live with.
Social norms that allow for FGM conflict with several social norms of Western civilization.  It denies a women’s rights to have control over her own body, as it is a requirement under shariah.  It destroys a woman’s ability to enjoy partaking in sexual activity when the woman marries.  This makes the act a duty and not a pleasure. The act itself violates the Hippocratic Oath “to do no harm.” In countries where FGM is banned, parents/guardians who have this done to their own daughters are denying the validity of laws made by men. 

Please support my work by giving through PayPal or by sending a check to Paul Sutliff, PO Box 12846, 4455 Lake Avenue, Rochester, NY 14612.

Wednesday, November 21, 2018

Judge in his mid 70s forgets he is a federal judge and acts on the fantasy he is on the Supreme Court


On November 20, 2018 Judge Bernard Friedman, of the US Federal District Court in Detroit ruled that a federal law barring Female Genitalia Mutilation (FGM) was unconstitutional since it was in his opinion a law made regarding religion. There are several issues with this erroneous ruling.

  1.  A federal district court is not the US Supreme Court which is the only court that has the power to determine constitutionality of a federal law. 
  2. The Judge is declaring himself the equivalent of nine justices on the Supreme Court in Washington, DC. In doing this it calls into question his mental health. 
  3. This ruling is a display of bias against those who brought charges disqualifying him from making a ruling in the first place. 
  4. FGM s a surgical procedure that mutilates a woman's body. . It is not a religious procedure. It requires surgery, and should require anesthesia, stitches and follow-up care. 
 1. A federal district court is not the US Supreme Court which is the only court that has the power to determine constitutionality of a federal law.

According to US Courts.gov, federal courts, “Federal courts hear cases involving the constitutionality of a law, cases involving the laws and treaties of the U.S. ambassadors and public ministers, disputes between two or more states, admiralty law, also known as maritime law, and bankruptcy cases.” However, this is a summarization of the roles of the entire judiciary branch of the federal government. It does not define what a federal district court does. This is found below:
 The nation’s 94 district or trial courts are called U.S. District Courts. District courts resolve disputes by determining the facts and applying legal principles to decide who is right.
Trial courts include the district judge who tries the case and a jury that decides the case. Magistrate judges assist district judges in preparing cases for trial. They may also conduct trials in misdemeanor cases. (http://www.uscourts.gov/about-federal-courts/court-role-and-structure)
Thus the Judge Bernard Friedman had the authority to try the case with a jury. He did not have the authority to over-rule Congressionally enacted federal law. Judge Bernard Friedman has also ruled against the constitutionality of a Michigan law banning homosexual marriage. When one man has the authority to supersede the actions of a state body and/or a state election, we give up being a constitutional republic and return to an oligarchy run by the Judiciary. The big difference here is his previous ruling addressed state law not federal law, which he has no authority to rule against, as he is not a Supreme Court Justice hearing a case on the constitutionality of a law.

2. The Judge is declaring himself the equivalent of nine justices on the Supreme Court in Washington, DC. In doing this it calls into question his mental health.

When a person believes he/she has for more authority than they actually have and acts on that belief, that is by definition delusional. Dr. Steve Bressert, states on PsychCentral.com:
 Delusional disorder is characterized by the presence of either bizarre or non-bizarre delusions which have persisted for at least one month. Non-bizarre delusions typically are beliefs of something occurring in a person’s life which is not out of the realm of possibility. (https://psychcentral.com/disorders/delusional-disorder-symptoms/)
Judge Bernard Friedman has acted as a judge, believing his authority is above that of legislatures for multiple years. Yet constitutionality of law is not officially a district court judge assignment. It is a Supreme Court Justice assignment. Dr. Bresserts article states that diagnostics of delusional behavior require that in order for this to be a diagnosis, the person in question must not have schizophrenia and apart from the delusion other behavior appears normal.

3. This ruling is a display of bias against those who brought charges disqualifying him from making a ruling in the first place.

The judges place in a federal court is to try the case, not take sides. By declaring a federal law unconstitutional the judge acted in a manner that displays bias. As (2) states it may be a delusional belief that allowed an action, but it is also a display of favor/bias on the part of the judge. He did not allow the case to be presented against the doctor accused. Instead Judge Bernard Friedman chose to go beyond the case presented and show his personal thoughts and beliefs by ruling the law unconstitutional. This case was never about whether a law is constitutional or not. It about whether the law was violated or not. That must not be forgotten!

4. FGM is a surgical procedure that mutilates a woman's body. It is not a religious procedure. It requires surgery, and should require anesthesia, stitches and follow-up care.

 The World Health Organization has addressed Female Genitalia Mutilation (FGM) for decades. According to their publication, WHO Guidelines on the Management of Health Complications from Female Genital Mutilation, FGM is not exclusively a religious practice. This means that the judge in his ruling not only saw himself in a delusional higher status, he also saw himself as above medical doctors who have been writing on this topic for decades. Who states the following on the reasons FGM is practiced:
FGM is practised for a variety of sociocultural reasons, varying from one region and ethnic group to another. The primary reason is that it is part of the history and cultural tradition of the community. In many cultures, it constitutes a rite of passage to adulthood and is also performed in order to confer a sense of ethnic and gender identity within the community. In many contexts, social acceptance is a primary reason for continuing the practice. Other reasons include safeguarding virginity before marriage, promoting marriageability (i.e. increasing a girl’s chances of finding a husband), ensuring fidelity after marriage, preventing rape, providing a source of income for circumcisers, as well as aesthetic reasons (cleanliness and beauty) (Ali AA. Knowledge and attitudes of female genital mutilation among midwives in Eastern Sudan. Reprod Health. 2012;9:23.). Some communities believe that FGM is a religious requirement, although it is not mentioned in major religious texts such as the Koran or the Bible. In fact, FGM predates Islam and is not practised in many Muslim countries, while it is performed in some Christian communities (ibid). Whatever the reason provided, FGM reflects deep-rooted inequality between the sexes. This aspect, and the fact that FGM is an embedded sociocultural practice, has made its complete elimination extremely challenging. As such, efforts to prevent and thus eventually eradicate FGM worldwide must continue, in addition to acknowledging and assisting the existing population of girls and women already living with its consequences whose health needs are currently not fully met.
I call upon President Trump and Congress to act against usurpers in federal judge robes, believing they are Supreme Court Justices. Act to stop this insanity and act to protect the people of the United States by again recognizing that this federal law against FGM is indeed constitutional and that the judge had no authority to declare it otherwise!


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