Hamas bans women from smoking water pipes in cafes

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip – Gaza's Hamas rulers are banning women from smoking water pipes in cafes, claiming it violates tradition and leads to divorce.

Plainclothes security officials handed out the ban order to Gaza City cafes over the weekend.

Police spokesman Ayman Batneiji said Sunday that officers are enforcing Gazan traditions. He said husbands often divorce women seen smoking in public but offered no evidence to support that claim.

The pipes are popular with both men and women in Gaza.

Since seizing control of Gaza in 2007, the Islamic Hamas has been trying to impose its strict interpretation of Islam on residents. Schoolgirls, for example, have been ordered to wear modest attire and male hair stylists are banned from women's salons.

[khad]

A bit of sensationalism. The problem here is more of the fact that Gaza is a socially conservative place, not necessarily Hamas. Even before Hamas took over, schoolchildren were sex segregated and alcohol was banned. In the past, their attempts to recruit female police officers in Gaza have met with tepid responses due to the reluctance on the part of local women to work in proximity with men.

This is actually a more informed article on the matter.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/hamas-bans-women-from-smoking-water-pipes-in-gaza-1.302631?localLinksEnabled=false


Some analysts in Gaza have said Hamas is introducing such laws in order to compete with other more extreme Islamist group in the coastal enclave. Some Hamas officials have even gone so far as to call for the adoption of Sharia law in Gaza rather than rule in the same way the Palestinian Authority does in the West Bank.

Some experts have even said that if Hamas does not authorize more hard-line Islamic laws they will lose public support in Gaza to extremist groups.

[Franz Fanonipants]

organization created by evil, imperialist neighbors to undermine a secular authority in a colonized area does a thing.

[Adi Shankara]

organization created by evil, imperialist neighbors to undermine a secular authority in a colonized area does a thing.

Very true; afterall, wasn't it the British empire with their "Victorian Values" which imposed the anti-sodomy laws in India that standed until only very recently?

Because judging from Hindu scripture and social practices, I cannot believe that India would've been homophobic before the arrival of the British.

[Dimentio]

Dog bites man.

Its not a surprise that proponents of a moralist, patriarchal ideology are doing moralist, patriarchal things.

[Coggeh]

Very true; afterall, wasn't it the British empire with their "Victorian Values" which imposed the anti-sodomy laws in India that standed until only very recently?

Because judging from Hindu scripture and social practices, I cannot believe that India was homophobic before the arrival of the British.

Many of these laws were actually imposed as you rightly pointed out. And many of the laws in the middle east were tribal laws passed down and also imposed which had absolutely nothing to do with islamism and scriptures in the Quran.

[Nothing Human Is Alien]

The problem here is more of the fact that Gaza is a socially conservative place, not necessarily Hamas.

:lol: Whatever helps you sleep at night.