Terrorist Hypocrisy and Jill Carroll

From Mona Eltahawy some words that put the terrorist kidnapping of Jill Carroll into perspective. It is obvious that anyone who wishes to counter the demonization of Moslems and Arabs must remain aware of the inequities that many women in the mideast experience. ...

Eltahawy writes:

Ever since the U.S. media uncovered the Abu Ghraib torture and abuse scandal and released photographs of the sexual humiliation of Iraqi male inmates by American soldiers, there have been rumours that Iraqi women too were abused.

Human rights groups and members of the U.S. Congress who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal have said that there are photographs and videos that show women being sexually humiliated.

After the Abu Ghraib scandal and following outrage at their heavy handed search methods, the Americans have tried to become more culturally sensitive by ordering male troops not to touch Iraqi women and by using female soldiers to search them at checkpoints.

That is quite ironic in light of the heavy handedness of our own security forces, which pay little regard to the “honour” which we claim to so value.

Just four days before Jill Carroll was kidnapped, ostensibly for the sake of Arab women’s honour, Egypt’s prosecutor general dismissed all charges in an inquiry into the sexual assault of female journalists by government supporters during protests in Cairo in May.

Perhaps if the Egyptian women had been assaulted by Americans, the case would have gone to trial.