Inappropriate contact between men and women on buses doesn’t invalidate the fast: cleric

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota

By Omar Bihmidine

Morocco World News

Tangier, July 13, 2013

According to Al Akhbar newspaper, controversial Moroccan “cleric” Abdelbari Zamzami recently issued a fatwa, which states that physical contact between men and women on buses does not break the fast.

“Touching and physical contact do not break the fast even in the case of ejaculation,” Zamzami said in an interview.

The fatwa which went viral on Facebook social network sparked much uproar and received harsh criticism from a number of Moroccans.

“Ejaculating semen intentionally breaks the fast. How come this cleric said it does not?” a Moroccan adult who opposed the cleric so-called fatwa told MWN.

“This person is a disaster,” a Moroccan journalist from Tangier posted on her Facebook page upon learning of Zamzami’s statement.

“A complaint should be filed in the court against this category of human who sully religion with their so-called Fatwas,” a Moroccan resident in New Jersey city, who was outraged by Zamzami’s statement, told MWN.

“Despite arousing sexual desire, this physical contact does not lead to breaking the fast,” Zamzami was quoted by the newspaper as saying.

“Because men and women get on crammed buses, they can not help touching one another. Yet, there is no harm in that as touching and ejaculating won’t break your fast,” Zamzami added.

The cleric based his fatwa on the fact that “the act of touching is not meant to satisfy one’s sexual desire” and that “kissing one’s wife during the holy month of Ramadan doesn’t spoil the fast.”

This is not the first time Zamzami comes up with statements, considered by some as fatwas, that stir uproar in Morocco.

In early 2012 he said that a Muslim is allowed to make love to his dead wife, a form of necrophilia, and that it is strictly forbidden for Moroccans to take to the street after the king’s speeches. In another “fatwa” he said that women are allowed to have recourse to masturbation to satisfy their long-repressed sexual desires.

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FEMEN call on Turkish women to protest against the trial of Amina Tyler

AppId is over the quota
AppId is over the quota
By Youssef Sourgo

Morocco World News

Casablanca, June 10, 2013

From Ukraine, to Brazil, to Germany, to the U.S., to Canada, all the way to Tunisia, FEMEN seems to have recently settled in Turkey.

“FEMEN wants to congratulate Turkish people with their first victory,” read a statement recently posted on FEMEN’s official Facebook page. The statement came attached to a picture depicting a group of Turkish girls with the Turkish flag painted on their nude breasts. 

Other recent posts on the same page featured incentive calls to action targeting Turkish young women. Seemingly, the statements are calling for support and solidarity with Tunisian FEMEN protesters who were detained by police officials for their controversial protest methods.

“We ask you to help to organize militant pickets near the Embassy and Consulate of Tunisia in Istanbul and Ankara with the slogan FREE FEMEN,” reads a direct address to Turkish young women, posted on FEMEN’s official page.

FEMEN’s international branches, including its proponents in Turkey, are expected to organize series of protests in Turkey in particular, and in many locations worldwide as it has been the case over the last couple of weeks.

The expected Turkish protests in support of FEMEN’s cause and in reaction to the trial of four FEMEN activists scheduled on June 12 will apparently take place before the Embassy and Consulate of Tunisia in Istanbul and Ankara.

© Morocco World News. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, rewritten or redistributed

European women go on trial for the manifestation of Tunis topless

TUNIS, June 5, 2013 (AFP)

Three European women went to trial in Tunis Wednesday to hold a demonstration anti-islamiste topless, and their French lawyer said he was confident about the outcome, despite the risk of imprisonment.

Pauline Hillier and Marguerite Stern of France and Josephine Markmann of Germany arrived at the Court around 0930 GMT wearing a traditional Tunisian veil, or Sam.

A few dozen people had gathered outside the courthouse and shouted abuse at one of Tunisian women lawyers.
"How can you defend these women?", one of the people shouted. "You're not Tunisian; you are not Muslim; you don't have a woman or a girl."

Patrick Klugman, who came to Tunis to represent activists from the radical group Femen, said that the prosecution decided on a charge of debauchery, and not an attack against public morals.

Klugman said Femen is accused of having committed an act of debauchery, but that there is no facts or evidence of the intention to support the charge.

"Their bodies were exposed not to seduce but to convey a political message... which is different from the common bawdy-house," he told AFP.

But women still face a possible six months in jail sentenced if found guilty.

Klugman said that he had come to defend "the freedom of expression of women, of their message and activists Femen.»
"We ask that these activists Femen are heard instead of watched", he added.

Given the sensitivity of the case in socially conservative Tunisia, which is governed by an Islamic party and where the pure Salafists are more authoritarian, a Ukrainian activist who had come to support women has been expelled from the country on the eve of the trial.

«Sextremist» said the expulsion motion, which the authorities have not been confirmed, is a worrying precedent.

"This is a signal that the Court will not base its judgment on the law, but that decision will be political," leader of Femen in Paris, Inna Shevchenko, told AFP by telephone.

The two French and a German activists staged the first demonstration topless from the group in the Arab world, outside the Palace of justice main in Tunis, may 29.

They were demonstrating in support of Amina Sboui, a Tunisian militant arrested after painting the word "Femen" on a wall near a cemetery in the religious city of Kairouan, in an act of protest against Islamic extremists.

Kevin is also due to appear before an examining magistrate Wednesday. She is facing possible charges of indecency and desecrating a cemetery.