On September 12, 2015, Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) learned of a protest by women’s rights groups in Pontoise, France, and a violent attack on them during the protest. The protest was held during an event at the Muslim Salon in Pontoise, which reportedly was to include discussions by imams Nader Abou Anas and Mehdi Kebir.

Due to the challenges of language differences, Americans often do not hear about the extremist views on human rights by religious leaders in other nations.

Imam Nader Abou Anas has previously stated: “the righteous women are devoutly obedient to their husbands.” “The woman, she leaves her only by the permission of her husband.” “Let her know that the angels curse her all night if she refuses her husband for no good reason.” This has been concisely translated to read “the woman must satisfy the sexual needs of her husband upon request otherwise it will be cursed. On YouTube, there is a video of Imam Nader Abou Anas and his comments about women, entitled, “La femme en islam, selon Nader Abou Anas.”

 

Imam Mehdi Kabir is also reported to have stated how that he views that women who wear perfume are essentially adulteresses. A video of this imam’s speech is also on YouTube, titled “Tu laisse ta femme ou ta soeur sortir ainsi alor tu n’est pas un homme,” or in English “You let your wife or your sister out and you’re not a man.”

So the idea behind women’s rights protesters were to challenge these viewpoints in France.  They protested and disrupted the conference at the Muslim Salon in Pontoise, which was entitled “The Role of Women in Islam.”  Other journalists saw no point to this protest, because reportedly these imams had not yet made such comments at this specific September 12, 2015 prior to the protests.

Perhaps some felt that FEMEN’s protests were unfair.

But the violent response to the FEMEN protests say more than their protests.

Women’s Rights protesters from the FEMEN group appeared on stage with the words “Nobody makes me submit” and “I am my own prophet” written on their torsos. They were removed from the stage. The video of this attack shows that the women were partially nude. But what the video (warning on video – nudity and violence) of the attack also shows is how the women were violently dragged off the stage, and one woman was punched and then when she was knocked to the ground by the Muslim Salon security personnel, she was repeatedly kicked on the ground.

The image of these women protesters being kicked on the ground tells us all that we need to know about the human rights views of those who organized this event.  If we had any doubt about the real views of the leaders of this event, this certainly made them clear.

No matter how outraged and upset we may be, we don’t have the “right” to punch protesters, knock them to ground, and then kick defenseless protesters as vicious mob.  The idea that such violence would be acceptable in a religious setting, which stated its goal was to talk “the role of women in Islam,” is wrong.  I urge those who support human rights from any faith, or none at all to join the protest against this behavior against the protesters, just as we would in ANY SETTING, at any religious gathering, or any event.

Our sisters in humanity are not THINGS.

Our sisters in humanity are not DOGS, and not ANIMALS, and civilized people would not even kick animals like this.

Our sisters in humanity are HUMAN BEINGS.

Whether you agree or not with FEMEN’s controversial protest tactics, they address a growing need for the respect of women by all in France and around the world. We see too much of this violence and contempt for women in our world, and if we are responsible for our shared universal human rights, then we must defy this.

We urge all people to be Responsible for Equality And Liberty – including for all of women in the world.