Mutaween Murderers

The Idiot Alert Files have joined ranks to keep out the religious police of Saudi Arabia. Citing intelligence and ethical standards too high for the members thereof to meet, the proud Idiots have declared their need to draw the line at just whom they will accept in their midst, especially since these clerical police are government-authorized, meaning the mentally-challenged Saudi Arabia government would have to be admitted as well. Some ideas are just too odious.
The mutaween of Saudi Arabia are entrusted by the Committe for the Propagaion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice with the task of enforcig Sharia. They are empowered to arrest unrelated females and males caught in such depraved behaviour as talking together. They did just that this February when they arrested, strip-searched and jailed an American businesswoman who was indulging in the depravity of sitting in Starbucks near her office in Riyadh, and talking with a male colleague. They enforce dress-codes, and dietary laws; they seize banned consumer products, like CD's of western musical groups. The approximately 3,500 officers of the mutaween are joined by thousands of enthusiastic volunteers throughout the country who get their jollies by laying a good beating on someone less powerful than themselves.
Among the worthy activities undertaken by this group of thugs has been the banning of Valentine's Day gifts. You have to wonder how many husbands and wives carefully avoid even looking at each other on Feb. 14 in order to ensure the mutaween don't burst into their homes and start laying about with cudgels to make themselves feel all happy and warm inside.
Such brain-dead individuals are always among the first to scream long and loud at any perceived injustice dealt to them and their religous kin, yet they regularly arrest priests for attempting to say Mass. Such open-minded fairness, don't you think? They also deal out floggings on a regular basis to those they decide are guilty of stepping on Allah's toes.
In March of 2002, the religious police of Saudi Arabia showed their colours like never before, when they decided to burn alive 15 schoolgirls in the city of Mecca. Firemen trying to do their job and save lives were actually beaten back by the mutaween. These worthies even beat back girls trying desperately to escape the burning building. Men who were trying to help the girls were stopped These evil ones who pretend to defend virtue stopped men trying to help save the students, warning the men it would be sinful to approach the girls. Allah forbid any of the male rescuers should glimpse something as wildly provacative as an elbow. In case you're thinking this was a case of rampant misogyny run amok, let me set you straight. These stalwarts of the faith would never undertake such an action without totally righteous justification. The girls deemed worthy of this horrendous death were gulty of an unforgiveable sin. They were not wearing the abaya at the time the blaze broke out.
WTF, you say? This absolute essential to fire safety is the overgarment draped from the shoulders and meant to cover the whole body of a woman in public. While it does not cover the face, it is often combined with the niqab, a face veil that covers all but the eyes of the female shrouded by this offensive garment.
WTF, you repeat? Those perpetrators of diabolism sacrificed 15 innocent young girls to the wearing of a square cloth sack? Yes, that is exactly what these women-haters did. One of the things that raises my hackles every time I read about these soul-sucking purveyors of oppression, is that the outcry raised at the time of this human sacrifice was swept under the rug. International protest, even incredibly brave protest by the al-Eqtisadiah daily and other media members in Saudi Arabia did nothing to lessen the powers of the mutaween. Why is such a perversion allowed to continue its existence? How could anyone with even half a functining brain ever excuse the existence of such a group, let alone actually endorse it?
What scares me even more than the thought of such a group wielding the power they do in Saudi Arabia, is the fact that were those in Canada who actually debated allowing Sharia to be instituted here. Give your head one hell of a shake, people. The idea of such a group should scare the hell out of you. It should ring deafening alarm bells in your mind.
Women are always the oppressed of the oppressed, but those who do nothing to try and stop this oppression should remember the words of social activist Martin Niemoller:

"First they came for the Communists and I said nothing; after all I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews and I said nothing; after all I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the trade unionists and I said nothing; after all I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me."

I have said it before and I will say it again. Any group that is oppressed can be readily fit into Niemoller's ode to complacency, and the dire warning will still stand strong. In this case, substitute the word "women" in one of the lines penned by Niemoller. It will fit all too well. Too many of us ignore Niemoller's words, much to our own peril. We all need to denounce this idiocy. We all need to protest the existence of the mutaween.