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Samira Munir - Champion for Muslim Women
Fjordman
2005/12/05
 Samira
Munir, Norwegian
politician of Pakistani origins, died on November 14, 2005. All the
details surrounding her death have not been revealed, but the police have
hinted that it may have been suicide. It is not impossible that this could
be the case, but she had received death threats many times from the
Pakistani community in Norway because of her courageous fight for the
rights of Muslim immigrant women, and for banning hijab, the Islamic veil.
The website of Human
Rights Service brought the shocking news that Samira had died under
circumstances which still seem mysterious. Officially, she was killed by a
train at Kolbotn
station, one of the suburban lines outside Oslo. However, there has
been quite a lot of speculation unofficially that the details surrounding
her death don't add up, and that she may have been killed or even was dead
before she was hit by the train.
Muslim men go to great lengths in Western European nations to control
their women from outside influence and signs of independence. In Denmark
recently, a number of taxi drivers with immigrant backgrounds were spying
on female immigrants who were hiding from their families. Taxi drivers
using mobile phones are photographing females, who are seeking asylum in
crisis centres, and their whereabouts are being sent onto their families.
A group of Taxi drivers informed a Pakistani man recently, who was looking
for his sister, where she could be found. The
man murdered his sister outside Slagelse train station because she had
married a man from Afghanistan against her families orders. Samira Munir
invoked the wrath of very powerful people with her fight against the veil
and for the liberty of Muslim women. A Pakistani by birth, she was even
threatened by Pakistani authorities and Pakistan's ambassador to Norway on
several occasions.
Munir received many
death threats against herself and her family because of her work as a
champion of the rights of Muslim immigrant women. In an interview earlier
this year, she claimed to receive threatening phone calls on an almost
daily basis, and that Muslim men would stop her in the streets,
intimidating her and threatening to kill her. She told that Muslim girls
who refuse to wear the veil are seen as whores. She also claimed that
there was widespread cooperation between the Socialist parties and Muslim
communities during this year's elections in Norway. "The heads of
families and the mosques would decide how entire groups of immigrants
would vote. They made deals such as "How much money will we get if we
get our people to vote for you?", and the deals were always made with
the Socialist parties" said Munir, who was a local politician and a
member of the city council in Oslo.
But Munir's own party, the Conservatives, were far from blameless in
courting Muslims. Even as she lived with death threats for her fight to
ban the veil, her own party leader managed to pass a law that would make
any opposition to the veil "discriminatory" and illegal and that
those accused of discrimination have to mount proof of their own
innocence. Former Cabinet minister and leader
of the Conservatives Erna Solberg, who has earlier called for the
establishment of a sharia council in Norway, proposed the new act. In a
recent case, a local furniture store wouldn't allow a female employee to
wear a head scarf, arguing that it violated the store's dress code. Solberg
argued that existing law already made it illegal for employers, for
example, to prevent women from wearing head scarves if their religion
calls for it. Her new law "would make this even more clear."
Samira Munir thus received no support whatsoever from her party in her
struggle for the rights of Muslim immigrant women. Quite the contrary, one
of her party colleagues, a Muslim, threatened her with a lawsuit for some
of her statements. Her proposals to improve the conditions for Muslim
women in Norway were continuously sabotaged and backstabbed by the rest of
the party. She spoke about how Muslim girls who in public said they wore
hijab of their own free will in private confided in her that they were
being forced to do so, and urged her to carry on being a voice for those
who had neither the possibility nor the courage to speak for themselves.
There are many uncertainties about Samira’s tragic death. But even if it
was a suicide it does not add up. A healthy 42-year-old woman and the
mother of two does not just jump in front of a train for no reason. As a
matter of fact there has to be a very good reason. If that is what
actually happened we will probably never know the true reason in detail,
but a few facts we do know. We know that both she and her family were
being harassed and received death threats, and we know she was being very
concerned about the development of the Muslim immigrant community in
Norway, which is becoming ever more radical and extremist. The pressure
against her, and the bleak outlook for the future can surely be enough to
drive a person to commit suicide, and the lack of support from within the
Conservative party most certainly did not make it any better. So even if
the final act was one of her own choosing her blood remains on the hands
of Norwegian Muslims and their appeasers on both sides of the political
spectrum.
Perhaps the real question isn't whether Samira Munir was pushed in front
of that train, but whether she was pushed physically or just mentally. The
night before she died, Samira Munir had expressed great satisfaction on
Norwegian radio with the European Court of Human Rights upholding a ruling
banning the veil in Turkish universities. She was a brave woman, and will
be missed. Her death puts this country to shame. May she rest in peace.
But first of all, she is a symbol and a tragic reminder of just how bad
the situation is becoming for Muslim women in Europe, and how hypocritical
"Multicultural" Europeans are. Even in Scandinavian countries
priding themselves of being champions of women's rights, Muslim women who
stand up for their rights receive too little support and risk ending up
dead in front of a train. Samira Munir's death is thus a warning to
Europeans of how dangerous things are starting to become, not just in
France, but all over Western Europe.
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