The Kathy Shaidle Social Action Award Goes To…
…Alex W., who stabbed Marwa el-Sherbini to death in a Dresden Courtroom because he didn’t think she should be wearing a hijab.
Unemployed Alex W. from Perm in Russia was found guilty last November of insulting and abusing Sherbini, screaming “terrorist” and “Islamist whore” at her, during the Dresden park encounter. He was fined ¤780 but had appealed the verdict, which is why he and Sherbini appeared face to face in court again.
It was while Marwa el-Sherbini was in the dock recalling how the accused had insulted her for wearing the hijab after she asked him to let her son sit on a swing last summer, that the very same man strode across the Dresden courtroom and plunged a knife into her 18 times.
Her three-year-old son Mustafa was forced to watch as his mother slumped to the courtroom floor.
Even her husband Elvi Ali Okaz could do nothing as the 28-year-old Russian stock controller who was being sued for insult and abuse took the life of his pregnant wife. As Okaz ran to save her, he too was brought down, shot by a police officer who mistook him for the attacker. He is now in intensive care in a Dresden hospital.
Wendy Sullivan will be flying to Dresden to present a plaque and a Danish cartoon t-shirt to the murderer, on behalf of all brave Canadian bloggers fighting to let the Hate Genie out of the bottle here.
Oh, well… Russians…
Outright bigots like Shaidle who write to inflame opinion have the greater responsibility, I agree, but there is a lot of establishment and mainstream opinion that gives the bigotry a protective context.
The hijab is peculiarly marked in Western culture right now, and it takes a lot of deconstructing to figure out why that should be so. Gasbags like Jack Straw in Britain (I can find that reference if I really have to) or Jason Kenney here have not been helpful. Even some civil-rights activists have been blinkered imho, and those of us who make that argument are often attacked by our own allies for being cultural relativists. Or something.
Me, I just think that being stabbed to death is a very bad thing. Being bombed with your entire family is also very bad. And you want to keep your distance from people who are bent on saving you even if that means killing you.
Oh come on. Not even Kathy Shaidle should be used and abused in this matter to make a point. I have not read SDA lately and I have to presume she has not commented on the affair and if she had, she would not justify the murder.
However, I will check out SDA afterwards, just to be sure
Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind, bud.
I presume Wendy is the ‘Girl on the Right’ blog writer. Anyway, when I just went to that blog, I was blocked (I am in an access centre run by the New Brunswick Department of Education – my own computer finally gave up the spirit after 8 years.)
Censorship is alive and well in our educational system to prevent young minds from being corrupted.
I don’t know if even you progressives would agree with such blocking.
@balbulican – You are rather a ruthless no-holds kind of guy, I guess
Actually, I am a rather retiring, somewhat reclusive and quite pleasant chap. But some people really piss me off.
Canuckguy, no one has suggested she would justify murder. The link is between inciting hatred and contempt and increasing the likelihood of this kind of tragedy, a link the more extreme free-speechers will go to their graves denying is possible. balb’s flight of hyperbolic fantasy is transparent as such and within the limits of righteous anger. Besides, you know balb.
Unless he is a kid, why is this slimeball’s name being withheld?
Didn’t Macleans and Mark Steyn just last year get off (with a warning) on charges of hate speech against Muslims?
Actually Steyn was never a respondent in either Ontario or BC. And Maclean’s suffered only a few off-the-cuff comments by Barbara Hall that were not, strictly speaking, part of the ruling.
Oh well. Details. I really just meant to point out that our mainstream media has had some recent ’splainin’ to do in terms of its intemperate coverage of the Islamic Menace. Blogs are hardly the point when kooks like Mark Steyn still hold prime pundit posts.
Well, you’re right, of course. I was just in a nit-picky mood.
Omigawd, that sounds like fun, though. I’m going to fake a nit-picky mood tomorrow and be one of those commenters who can’t let even the wee bittiest of not quite correct information go.
I should go to bed now so tomorrow comes faster!
So an obscure Canadian blogger is somehow responsible for a murder half a world away?
Sigh. I believe Dr. Dawg and I just agreed that, no, Macleans is responsible for a murder half a world away.
I need to respond to Nastyboy. What’s a combination of “missing the point” and the opposite of reductio ad absurdum (”exaggeratio ad ridiculosum?”)
my cat’s breath smells like cat food
Now I’m wondering about Neda – I distinctly remember her wearing a headscarf. I wonder what KS or the other maniacs think about that…
I notice Hamas has is up to making life worse for Palestinian women by hassling them for made up dress code infractions in Gaza.