Gayle Tzemach Lemmon Quotes

Moslem fundamentalists use 7th century customs to keep 21st century women in line.

I am always revolted when Islamic leaders, from Afghanistan or elsewhere, deny the very existence of female oppression, avoid the issue by pointing to examples of what they view as Western mistreatment of women, or even worse, justify the oppression of women on the basis of notions derived from Sharia law.

Women, who enjoyed a high social status and levels of education under Saddam, saw terrible setbacks as Iraq fell into civil war. As a result of the sectarian violence from 2005-2007, women retreated to their homes and fell from public view.

Photography of any living being, according to Taliban rule, was illegal. So when I went to Afghanistan, immediately I was worried about photographing people. But it was what I wanted: to show what life was like under the Taliban, specifically for women.

Part of the Koran is a license for oppression.

Moslems everywhere behave with equal savagery. They behead criminals, stone to death female — only female — adulteresses, throw acid in the faces of women who refuse to wear the chador, mutilate the genitals of young girls and ritually abuse animals..

In the religion classes, students learn that the Saudi interpretation of Islam supersedes any worldly concept of human rights. Women have the most to lose, yet their ideas are so ingrained that I defy you to find a report of a Saudi mother complaining about what our children are being taught.

I am a woman, and as such, I experience the ever-increasing restrictions on our liberty in our country through the development of Islamic fundamentalism.

I have traveled a lot in the world, and wherever Islam is in charge, it's just terrible.

In one notorious episode in 2002, in the holy city of Mecca, the religious police prevented girls from fleeing a school that was on fire because they were not properly dressed.

Islamic State practise a brand of Islamic law so strict that apparently Raqqa only has two Irish Pubs.

The problem with Islam is that it's a law, not a religion, and it's incompatible with our values, our rights, and our freedoms.

Saudi Arabia operates according to the belief that God made young men and women so utterly and completely without self-control that they must be physically segregated every moment of the day and night.

This is a good time to ask apologists for the Islamic regime, who degrades Islam? Who imposes stoning, forced marriage of underage girls and flogging for not wearing the veil? Do such practices represent Iran's ancient history and culture, its ethnic and religious diversity? Its centuries of sensual and subversive poetry?

For the jihadists, Muslim women who embrace Western mores, and wear tight jeans or mini skirts, are hated symbols of corruption that need to be eradicated. For the ideological mentors of Breivik, a similar disturbance comes from the burqa, which is banned in France and Belgium, partly thanks to their efforts.

I was traumatised in the medieval Afghan society at Sarana village by the local boys of Omar's Taliban who forced my in-laws to subjugate me for trying to be different. There can be Omars in other religions, too, who oppress women.

I cannot accept a divide between Malagasy people and a civil war.

To Western eyes and ears, Sharia law seems devoid of respect for differences of opinion or complex moral thinking. Certainly the American idea of separation between church and state is lost in Sharia-style governance.

Western governments have completely separated Islam from politics. They have cut off its head and given the rest to us.

The burqa is a prison for women, a tool of sexist domination and Islamist indoctrination, Veils had no basis in Islam and "belong to a tiny minority tradition reflecting an ideology that scuttles the Muslim religion., If they want to wear the veil, they can go to a country where it's the tradition, like Saudi Arabia.

It is not Islam the religion that is generating discord. Rather the problem is a deep disagreement among Muslims over the degree to which Islam ought to shape the laws and institutions of society…. the ongoing competition over what constitutes good public order has polarized them, creating vicious enmities that resist compromise.

The burkini is not some new line of swimwear. It is the search version of the burqa and it has the same logic: hide women’s bodies in order to better to control them.

We need to understand the difference between freedom of religion - which is absolutely guaranteed and I would fervently defend. Sharia law is politics; it's not religion. If you say that a woman is voluntarily going to be of lesser value than a man, which is in sharia law, can we allow that?

I always found it ironic when a Saudi official bashes Islamists, given that Saudi Arabia is the mother of all political Islam - and even describes itself as an Islamic state in its 'Higher Law.'

Across the globe, fundamentalists of all religions are on one side, and their attitudes towards women and towards female sexuality are almost identical.