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[hnpcc]

From the Human Rights Watch website, probably under the "get a life and a girlfriend" tag Chechnya, choked by headscarves.

At the corner there were two cars of Kadyrov's men - young, bearded, in black uniforms and armed. There were about seven or eight of them. They shouted at the girl, obviously trying to strike up an acquaintance. She pretended she hadn't heard and started walking faster. The lads leapt out of the cars and rushed after her. They surrounded her and starting talking smut. She tried to tell them where to get off, yelling "Leave me alone!" Then they got even more worked up, saying that if she had been decently dressed and wearing a headscarf, no one would be pestering her. She was dressed in such a way as to attract men's attention and be a temptation to them. They told her she was a slut and belonged on the muck heap. They grabbed her hands and started dragging her toward the rubbish bin.

The girl was crying and trying to resist. She was being pulled by the hair. There were people in the street, but no one intervened. Only one woman of about 40 couldn't bear it any longer. She ran toward Fatima, grabbed hold of her and yelled: "What are you doing? Let the girl go!" The young men tried to shake her off, but she wouldn't let go and continued to shout even more loudly. Finally they let go of Fatima and left. The girl is still praying for her saviour, who doesn't herself understand how she didn't lose her nerve.

The woman probably lost her head. Her feelings of horror and pity were stronger than the instinct for self-preservation. She herself actually wears a headscarf, because she thinks it's right. She's been wearing it for many years, but now she sometimes wants to take it off: "You see, this kind of behaviour makes even a woman who wants to wear a headscarf start feeling that it's choking her."

Yeah another bunch of idiots menaces a 19 year old woman on the street. I hope that more Chechen women are able to stand up and tell them that it's none of their business who is wearing a scarf or not, it's none of their business how long a woman's skirt or sleeves are, it's none of their business how they choose to dress. And that there is no honour in harrassing a woman, nor is their honour measured by how their wives, daughters, mothers and sisters choose to dress.

Wankers. And you just know that if they weren't hooning around with the power to harrass women over dress, they'd be hooning around harrassing them over some other, completely arbitary thing. Like, being female in a public place. Or, in Australia, harrassing her for wearing a headscarf in a public place.

God. Get Over How Women Dress. Seriously. None of your business. Wearing a scarf, not wearing a scarf. None of your bloody business.

Wankers. I suppose it's too much to hope that Chechen women all spend a day not wearing scarves in public as a protest. Because if I were them I'd be aiming to stop this bullshit as early as possible. I would say I'm happy to not wear a headscarf in solidarity, but that's probably not that big of a help or a sacrifice. If I can think of something more useful I will.

Comments

[jamaisneutral.livejournal.com]

That's disgusting... We have such a long way to go still.

[hnpcc]

I would hope I would have the courage that the woman on the street did. I don't know if I would though, particularly having read the rest of the article. But to see a 19 year old being dragged off by a group of guys... I would hope I would have that courage.

Then again, if the older woman had not been wearing a headscarf would she have intervened? I doubt it. *sigh*