Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has spoken out against the use of pressure to impose Islamic values on people, especially university candidates, media reported.
“You cannot impose things by issuing decrees and directives, a choice imposed by force has no value whatsoever,” Ahmadinejad said in a speech on Dec. 30.
“In some universities, female students are forced to wear the chador [covering the whole body, leaving only the face exposed], but the way they are forced to wear it … it is better not worn since it becomes worthless,” he said. He also criticized criteria on the selection of university candidates, citing the case of a student denied university admittance in the 1980s because he had shaved.
Ahmadinejad also mentioned another case of a girl refused a university place because she had “talked to a boy in the street and had her headscarf back an inch,” thereby showing her hair. He said that after he intervened in both cases they were granted places.
Ahmadinejad also denounced some of the questions posed to candidates during interviews for government jobs.
“We have asked people if they drank alcohol or have illicit sexual relations. This is an insult and goes against religion.”
You won’t see this in the mainstream media…
perhaps it may be said that the president was making a logical extension of muslim principles critical of proselytizing. A conversion based on intimidation/force is indeed worthless (inquisition/litmus test). So he is not necessarily being “modern” or bowing to potential western criticism, but instead is remaining true to his religion.
Christian missionaries, stalkers, carrot and stick cultural/territorial imperialists who operate the sword to bible to charity crumbs (from what they stole) scheme, take heed. all religions should be subject to scrutiny based on acts outside professed ideals, including islam in its various forms. The president of Iran seems to be doing just that. What a guy.
Western propaganda against Iran has been relentless in my lifetime.
The lies are so obvious, but most baby-boomers continue to believe all that they are told. Two key misinformation points: women are treated poorly in all mid-east countries and that Iran is determined to build nukes and threaten the west. We could talk about how women are routinely raped and sexually harassed in the US military, or about US weapons proliferation. My own mother buys into the fear and hate Iran that she has seen repeatedly on TV.
I tell her not to believe what the TV news says, and she tells me not to believe everything that I read on the internet. I feel that this is representative of the diverging mind-sets between the baby-boomers and those born later.
Do the Saudi’s treat their women so much better than across the gulf?
You don’t here the same outrage directed at them though, do you. I suspect Iranian women are better off than S.Arabian women.
Iran has a female rally driver,
Saudi-arabia simply ban’s women from driving.
(punished by x lashes of a wip – not making this up!)
that’s just one example.