Category: Rebellion

It all started when I saw her smile in a picture and I noted that she is beautiful woman. But the shock came when I knew that she is no longer with us, and how – Murdered!

When her relatives spoke about her, they did so whispering and from those whispers I managed to know that she did her best to raise her daughter with love, also instilling a feeling of self confidence in her. She knew the meaning of pain and wanted her loved one not to experience this feeling. She provided her with all she possibly could. But her unexpected, tragic and violent death leaves a lonely child, and a mum will not have the chance that every mother should have to see her daughter growing up and have the opportunity to be part of her life.

The woman who was killed was also a daughter and a sister.

Years pass quickly and the murderer was sentenced to life imprisonment, everyone was happy till my last visit to Malta.

My several visits to Malta gave me the possibility to understand the Maltese language, and I could comprehend a Maltese programme that spoke about prisoners who had a life sentence.

As a journalist I wanted to compare these kind of programmes in Europe with those in my country (Egypt), and to know how is the life of murderers in prison.

I would like to point out that I’m against capital punishment but with such a brutal murder like this one, I started doubting my belief to be against.

The savage cruelty shown by that murderer must be alien even to the realm of beasts. The killer was no stranger or thief but the father of the child, which shocked me twice.

The father instead of drawing a beautiful portrait for his child to illustrate to her a nice and beautiful life, he chose to draw an ugly, bloody portrait by stabbing her mother not once or twice but 49 times.

Unfortunately in my career I got used to hear several kind of stories that could be similar in part or another. The law in Egypt still has capital punishment, which gives some families satisfaction when they see the murderer die, (“An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”.)

In my opinion sentencing murderers to die because of their crimes is not correct, it is like giving them a quick death. Instead they should ponder on what they did wrong and pay for it by serving time in prison.

Murderers by their actions remove themselves from society and should no longer be part of it. They can’t be rehabilitated because unlike thieves they can’t return to their victims what was taken from them, so life imprisonment will be always the punishment meted out to the most serious, namely willful homicides.

Returning back to the T.V. programme, as the murderers themselves noted, these convicts have more rights than we law – abiding citizens. It seems that the EU with its notion of human rights – which are also applied to the prisoners of the EU member states – forgot that human rights don’t mean an overly comfortable life for criminals and murderers because we will give them a reason to commit crimes.

The murderer who committed this bloody crime was describing his day in prison:
How he gets up in the morning , eats breakfast, does some exercises with his colleagues, and washes his room, then drinks coffee quietly whilst reading the newspaper.

And his day didn’t finish like this, but as he said he has multi choices for the rest of the day. These could be visiting his colleague or chatting with him, seeing a DVD or navigate the internet.
This seems to look more like a well deserved retirement than a prison sentence.

The rest of the murderers were saying how easy it is to get a gun or smuggle drugs in prison without getting caught.

At the end of this programme I felt that the punishment is in fact forcing good citizens to pay for these criminals food and DVDs in prison, while prisoners don’t do anything to earn a living for themselves. Even in the wild, people have to do some work like hunting or building shelters.

In spite that criminals are contained within secure prison areas, it doesn’t mean that they should be treated as if they are on a vacation. Work is a part of life.

If human rights institutions applauded the presenter of the programme for showing that the prison in Malta respects human rights, the presenter forgot that the real human (the families of the victims) with his programme didn’t see real justice.

Justice will not make the families of the victims forget their beloved ones but at least, if justice used the sword it carried, it will help these families continue their lives knowing that the criminals are serving in prison for their crimes.

By: Jasmine Elnadeem

Once I saw this advertisement I was so confused, should I laugh or cry?
I don’t see it as a cosmetic thing for pleasure, but more as a way to save the oppressed lives of the ‘virgin’ wives that many religions demand, and the ‘honour’ killings that can, and do happen a lot afterwards.

As someone who comes from a country where virginity is valued, the blood is important because there is the concept of the imaginary virgin. That is, there is only one type of virgin: demure, with an intact hymen, and pure. Somehow, she is also a better sexual partner because she is “tighter” than other women.

The obsession is not necessarily with the blood per se but with the whole package, with this weird ideal of a woman. The idea is more twisted. According to some men virgins, for example, are always young and attractive.

In my community a virgin is a prime product. Men will sleep around with many women but when marriage time comes by they desire a virgin. It is almost a status symbol. Virginity is also tied together with other notions. So, for example, a woman who sleeps around a lot must be a slut, or an easy woman. In contrast a virgin excels at these skills. She is not quarrelsome or difficult like the “easy” woman.

This advertisement reminds me about a friend’s story who came to me once crying and told me:
“I am not a virgin. I am kind-hearted, sort of religious, I pray, I don’t lie, but losing my virginity has turned my life upside down. How it happened is a long story but the most important thing now is that this incident has turned my life into a living hell.”
Of course no one knows about it, but she feels so bad and she has been punishing herself for such a shameful thing.
“I know that I am not a good girl and that God is not happy with me or what I have done. This is why I decided to wear the veil. I hate it and I hate how I look and feel while wearing it but I put it on because it protects me from people staring at me or who gossip about me. I feel that everyone knows my deep dark secret and I am hiding my shame behind my veil.” She said

I told her that losing your virginity does not mean that you are a whore, having sex with a man you love makes you human – nothing less and nothing more, and virginity means nothing today or before; if a woman is a virgin it does not mean she has never had sex before and if she is a virgin it does not mean that she will not have an affair after marriage.
Decency, integrity, respect, and modesty are far deeper qualities than a piece of skin.
In spite of all I said, she was not convinced, and kept saying no one will marry me and I will never wear the white dress because I’m not virgin.

Then she asked me

“Have you ever sat dreamily imagining yourself in a fairytale wedding dress, about to marry your very own Prince Charming?”

Millions of girls and women that dream of the perfect marriage have a vision of the perfect white wedding dress in their minds, but I was not one of those millions who dreamt to be a princess in her white dress and her prince will come on his white horse to save her.

Flash back:
15 years ago, I read an article about wedding night in Egypt, and I was shocked, I was about 10 years old, I admit I was even afraid.

I understood from the article that historically, bridal virginity was prized in many cultures. A young woman was expected to maintain her chastity until she was deflowered on her wedding night. In some of these cultures, this led to the ancient custom of showing a bloodstained cloth on the wedding night as “proof”* of the bride’s virginity.

Incredibly, this custom is still practiced in some Egyptian villages to this day. Relatives of the bride and the groom actually sit outside the newlywed couple’s room on the wedding night waiting for the bloody bed sheet to be exhibited.

While the practice of parading ‘proof’ of bridal virginity has almost disappeared in the educated families, it is still widely believed that a woman should be a virgin on her wedding night.

The honor of a man is not related in any way to his own behavior, it is related primarily to the behavior of his wife, his daughter or his sister. A man who commits all the wrongdoings in the world is considered ‘honorable’ if his wife doesn’t deceive him by having an affair with another man. A man who is known as a wrong-doer is considered ‘honorable’ if his daughter safeguards her virginity. So the honor of a man is not related in any way to his behavior; such as being honest and respectable and always being truthful. This is a skewed understanding of the concept ‘honor’.
Honor killing is one of the forms of killing women because they have sex with men outside marriage. A man who is closely related to this woman who ‘misbehaves’ kills her in order to safeguard the honor of the family.

In the past, people used to say that a female can wear a chastity belt to keep her virginity till she finds the right prince who will open the lock.

We all know the origins of the chastity belt, right?

Chastity belts are surrounded by myths and folklore. The most common of these myths is that they were first used by crusading knights for their wives.

A Crusader goes off to fight, doesn’t trust his wife (or doesn’t trust the villagers left behind alone with his wife) and decides to fit her with a locking belt that will prevent her from having sex until he gets back with the key to unlock the belt.

The premise of the belts are simple: Stick your significant other (female or male) in this belt, fasten the lock, take away the key… and presumably your loved one will stay chaste until you return to unlock it. The practice was condoned by the Catholic Church because infidelity was considered a sin and usually any woman caught cheating was killed anyway. A man caught cheating usually got away with it.

The chastity belt can be also used to make sure that a women practices sexual abstinence before she is married. The chastity belt will ensure that she can’t have sexual relations.

Or, don’t worry about losing your virginity. With this product (artificial virginity hymen), you can restore your virginity again without going into the trouble of plastic surgery “hymenoplasty”.

It is also for those women who like to play the appearance game of being virgin. This is just another added lie to a tapestry of lies.

This product could influence future behavior, and the common assumption could be that all brides will be virgins on their wedding night.

Jasmine Elnadeem

This is my land, I was born here, and I will not let you rule.
I will sit here defending my freedom. Give me liberty or give me death, give me the ability to think, the ability to express my thoughts, or the ability to act. You may take my arms, my legs, my voice, or my life; but you cannot take my freedom.
I am free, and I will fight to free my land.

Some think that, we are no longer a free people and instead have become, for the most part, a nation of sheep who are unwilling to stand up for liberty and individual rights and instead have decided to go along in order to get along, but I believe, however, that more and more people are beginning to realize the folly of this position and are starting to find the intestinal fortitude to stand up to those people who continue to insist that they have authority to rule over our lives. I believe their stories need to be told and support garnered for their struggles

I will continue to live in the country of my birth, the country that supposedly embodies the principles of freedom and liberty, and use my keyboard as best I can to battle tyranny. Unlike those who back in the early history decided to abandon their countries to come to a foreign land offering freedom, I will stay with the people I grew up with and try as best I can to convince those who need convincing that freedom of the individual and respect for their fundamental rights are the best options.