“There is no humor in Islam” — Ayatollah Khomeini
No, Khomeini, you were wrong. Just look at this.
“‘Canada is the world’s worst oppressor of women’: Saudi Arabia’s bizarre propaganda campaign,” by Tristin Hopper, National Post, August 10, 2018 (thanks to Ken):
Within hours of Saudi Arabia expelling Canada’s ambassador, the country’s broadcasters and pro-government social media accounts ramped into high gear digging up dirt on its newest enemy.
A recurring theme of Saudi attacks against Canada is “those in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones,” an expression that is roughly the same in both English and Arabic.
For this argument to hold up, though, it has placed Saudi propagandists in the uncomfortable position of having to prove that Canada is a pariah state of oppression, death and misery.
Below, a quick summary on how they did.
Special thanks to Rev. Majed El Shafie, founder of the Toronto-based non-profit One Free World International, for helping with Arabic translation. We’ve written before about his work to rescue Yazidi refugees from Iraqi Kurdistan.…
Canada is one of the world’s worst oppressors of women
Of all the ways to dig up dirt on Canada, Saudi sources are inexplicably fixating on our treatment of women. Kuwaiti commentator Fahad Alshlimi claimed on Saudi TV this week that Canada has one of the world’s highest rates of oppression against women. “What about the mystery of 1000 murdered women in Canada?!” wrote one widely followed Riyadh-based Twitter account. Saudi social media accounts were Statistics Canada report on violence against women, calling it Canada’s “shame.” However, a deeper dive into that report would have revealed that it spends a lot of its time cataloguing things that Saudi Arabia does not even consider to be crimes. Domestic violence and spousal rape are not criminalized in Saudi Arabia, and Saudi women can be lashed for adultery if they are raped. Ironically, Saudi condemnations of Canada as a sexist backwater are happening simultaneously with Saudi criticism of Canadian foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland. Of course, female cabinet ministers like Freeland do not exist in Saudi Arabia. Unlike Saudi women, she is also legally allowed to make employment and travel decisions without the permission of a male guardian.