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news
Iranian cleric via Twitter.PNGIranian cleric's call to kill activist challenging country's ban on women cycling
An Iranian cleric has called on followers to “kill” an award-winning journalist and women’s rights campaigner after she challenged the country’s ban on women cycling.
Masih Alinejad, who lives in exile in the United States, posted a video to Twitter in which the unnamed cleric insisted she should be punished for apostasy – the rejection or renunciation of a religious faith.
Another cleric in Iran sends me death threats.
Recently, I had challenged Islamic Republic of Iran's ban on women's cycling. They say "it provokes men"
Historically, their own saints like Zeinab & Zahra had ridden camels.Why isn't that provocative?
These clerics are insecure pic.twitter.com/jpBQoqq3ov
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) June 17, 2020
“You’ve seen accursed Masih Alinejad and her insult to Saint Zeinab,” he said.
“How do you think we should punish this accursed hooligan?
“She should be punished for apostasy. This accursed person should be punished for apostasy.
“If no-one can kill her, she should at least lead an underground life.
“She provokes our youth – ‘If someone tells you not to ride a bike, tell them this. Talk about Zeinab, Zahra’.”
Making reference to the fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie following the publication of the novel The Satanic Verses, he said: “Wasn’t there another infidel abroad who had said something against Islam? He was considered an apostate and killed.
“How about Salman Rushdie? He still lives underground,” the cleric added.
In 2016, Iran’s supreme leader issued a fatwa forbidding women from cycling – with some posting videos to social media of them riding their bikes in response.
A video of a mother and daughter riding their bikes was posted to Facebook group My Stealthy Freedom, founded by Alinejad.
> Video: Women in Iran defy fatwa forbidding them from cycling
The daughter in the video said: “Bicycle riding is part of our lives,” adding that cycling “is our absolute right and we’re not going to give it up.”
Women’s rights campaigners in many countries in the Middle East and North Africa see cycling as an essential form of freedom, and the right to ride a bike – and the response of the authorities in Iran to women who do so – is something that Alinejad regularly highlights on social media and elsewhere.
Today, in Yazd, female cyclists were stopped by the police for riding bicycles. In the Islamic Republic, even women's cycling draws the ire of the authorities. Based on a fatwa (edict) issued by Iran's supreme leader, women riding bicycles is "haram", in case they excite men! pic.twitter.com/G1pnsPzlNI
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) June 13, 2018
Alinejad also founded the White Wednesdays movement in which Iranian women are encouraged to post photos of themselves online without a hijab or with a white headscarf to protest against Iran’s strict laws regarding women’s dress.
Last July, secret police in Tehran arrested her brother, Alireza Alinejad and two siblings of her former husband, in what she described as “hostage taking.”
Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa research director, said at the time: “These arrests are a blatant attempt by the Iranian authorities to punish Masih Alinejad for her peaceful work defending women’s rights.”
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
Latest Comments
- Geordiepeddeler 3 hours 45 min ago
Cycling infrastructure does not force drivers to break the law, drivers are the reason they break the law, no one else.
- chrisonabike 3 hours 58 min ago
Ah but taking pictures of things to defy the man (avoid a fine) is righteous. Taking pictures of people to grass on them to the cops (perhaps...
- ktache 5 hours 48 min ago
But getting paid for it is the very definition of professional....
- ktache 5 hours 56 min ago
Never had a Shimano QR fail on me. They just work. And the top end ones look good too....
- Backladder 6 hours 42 min ago
If you're only looking at the guy in front of you then you're going to crash whatever brakes you have, you need to look beyond them to anticipate...
- jaysa 7 hours 8 min ago
As a woman, this works great for me! My chain broke once, and a kind guy stopped with a chain breaker and sorted it all out for me. We stopped at a...
- andystow 7 hours 59 min ago
Same. I also have gone through a bunch of their tyres, and only the extralight disappointed (torn sidewall) but the standards are fantastic....
- chrisonabike 9 hours 57 min ago
Indeed - but it's no more inconsistent than our current road design - very often UK high streets are "for shopping" and also a busy through route....
- mike the bike 11 hours 27 min ago
If you ask the world's leading economic commentators how many people have been rescued from abject poverty by capitalism the average answer would...
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16 comments
Good on Road.cc posting this.
Islam - disagree with it, they threaten or really do kill you.
It's in their belief system and their actions ;-(
Yup. Christianity too - just look at the Lords Resistance Army, the worldwide treatment of homosexuality, the Inquisition, and so on. Or Buddhism - take Myanmar or Sri Lanka. And atheism - See the Chinese regime, or the Soviet Union.
Or just maybe totalitarianism and oppression can attach themselves to any belief system or none, and aren't representative of those belief systems.
[By the way - what's with all the inappropriate winking?]
That doesn't make sense though - most likely Masih Alinijad is a Muslim - and she isn't advocating death to anyone, just cycling.
It's not in Muslim's 'belief system' to kill people. There are millions of Muslims and they don't all think and behave alike. Just like all Jews and all Catholics don't all think alike. I mean, it's so obvious that even an idiot would understand that much, surely?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHbzSif78qQ
(Somebody had to do it)
Can't say that I've ever met a muslim that was like that and I don't recall meeting many muslims in New Zealand so maybe you're just repeating anti-muslim bullshit because you've heard other people saying it.
If we're going to compare religions then I'd've thought that christians are responsible for a lot more death and suffering than any other religion. However, the christians that I know aren't violent people at all - you have to look beyond labels and form your own opinions (unless you just want to be a tool of right-wing propaganda).
Edit: Found an interesting comparison of deaths by religion from https://www.quora.com/Which-religion-is-responsible-for-the-greatest-number-of-deaths-of-infidels-over-its-entire-history
Shame on Road.cc for publishing this openly Islamophobic claptrap from NZ Vegan Rider.
There are approx 1.8 billion Muslims which this poster wishes to 'tar all with the same brush' as murderers or potential murderers. 'They' (which includes many of 'us') are not all the same. This cleric's views on this issue are reprehensible - but responding with this kind of bigotry is contemptible.
Tell that to all the health centre workers threatened by 'Merican Christians for offering emergency contraception or abortions...
LOL you're going to upset the Guardian readers with that comment
It's almost as if Islam is very conservative and non-progressive thought system.
More power to Masih in her attempts to modernise a country saddled with a backwards theocracy.
There are some very strange people in this world. I don't know if it's because I'm getting older, or more aware, or even less aware, or whether the past few months/years have changed things somehow.. but people and their thinking appear to be more extreme than ever before, and I don't just mean this nutjob citing Islam for his extreme views, I mean the activists, the media, the politically correct keyboard police, the people who influence our moral compass on a daily basis.
Everyone seems to have a drum to bang which they think is the most righteous. When did the world stop being able to debate subjects which might deal with actual issues, without someone calling someone else racist/bigoted or fascist.
In the past week we've had censored: various statues, Faulty Towers, The Mighty Boosh, The League of Gentlemen, Little Britain, Bo Selector, some Saturday Night Live and Ant & Dec's Takeaway shows, Gone with the Wind even.. The fact we've lost or had censored some of these shows isn't really a big deal, I'm quite sure that what they are doing is righteous indeed, but it demonstrates my point,(Gone with the Wind was made in the 1939 FFS), will someone walk into my house, see I own the Mighty Boosh boxset and think I'm prejudice now? Does my moral code have to follow all the latest trends, because I'm pretty sure I can't keep up. America has some serious racial issues, but this issue is surely deeper than creed, surely at the heart of the matter is America's deep rooted social and economic inequality.
It seems to me that the world hears what it wants to but doesn't listen to what's being said/trying to be said. Voices of reason seem to be getting quieter and quieter. Humour used to be a great leveller, Alf Garnett was a hateful racist character, the whole joke was, that he was a joke.
I wonder how influential this extreme cleric has, I suppose he only needs to reach one lunatic to make the world a little bit worse.
I think it's because these issues are so firmly in the public eye. Very little has changed about the things that are being protested, for decades, but you haven't been confronted (a royal you, not you Pete) by them to this extent so you haven't needed to evaluate how it relates to you. But your uncertainty about how to respond is a good thing - even if it makes you uncomfortable - because it shows you're asking questions of yourself and things that would have passed you by before. I doubt anyone would bat an eyelid over a Boosh DVD... but I did have to bite my tongue when my wife's grandparents put on a comedy show from back in the day that included a white guy in a black morph suit and glasses 'playing' Stevie Wonder. Times change! Also, the internet is a terrible place to actually discuss/debate.
Bo Selecta was always shit, mind you. No loss there.
I have a delightful collection of "Goons" shows tucked away... Talk about stuff to ban.
Chanting in the background: Death to the British, death to the British...
Seagoon: Call out the Irish Guard
Major Bloodnok: That is the Irish Guard!
And I have a copy of "Radio Dinners" on genuine vinyl. I am sure the Banners want to get rid of that one very much.
By the way: you British should not believe everything you read about the USA in the popular press. Yes, we have a dimwitted loudmouthed schnook for president. With the choices from the major parties we will still have a dimwitted loudmouthed schnook as president in a year.
We survived a guy who had the openly racist Jew-hating bigot Al Sharpton as a private guest in the Whitehouse at least seven times. We will survive Trump and maybe Biden as well.
Maybe Iranian men REALLY don't like being chick'd?
Is it me, but it seems like there are a lot of men out there who think that (other) men are very (or far too) easily excited...?
Don't most grownups - yes, even men! - have some sort of self-restraint, willpower, what have you. Certainly, a woman on a bicycle isn't quite enough to get me excited.
Depends on the bike surely?!