Things We Learned on the BBC Today- Iranian Futboler Can Return to Team

The Middle East is the focus of our two blog entries today, and both entries (the one is on "The Daily Vampire") deal with the collision of Islam and western values in that region of the world. Our other feature was about an ironic situation involving social networking in Egypt.

In Iran, futbol star Ali Karimi will be allowed to return to his club team Steel Azin again even though he broke the Ramadan fast. But, in order to do so, he must pay a $40,000 fine.

According to the BBC report from Keith Adams, Karimi seems like a Muhammad Ali of his nation he has been a verbal critic of the Iranian government, the Iranian futbol federation and even his own team!

Karimi took an extra measure to bravely show his voice by wearing a green arm band to show support for the opposition movement against the Teheran regime in a World Cup qualifier against South Korea.

One certainly has to admire his bravery and call for social justice.

There is a significantly large Iranian community here in America in the Los Angeles-area.

SIDEBAR: We have decided to add a "High School of the Week" series of entries to this and our sister blog. The entries will run on Tuesdays and Fridays.

Syrian Child Bride Goes Back Home

According to "Today's Zaman," an English-language edition of what has traditionally been one of Turkey's most conservative newspapers (I generally don't agree with their opinion page- to put it midly), a 12-year-old Syrian bride who was married to a 35-year-old Turkish man in the southeastern Turkish city of Urfa (known for its famous dish, Urfa kebab-pictured here) has returned home to her parents.

Bedia Amori, the child bride (she is not the one actually pictured here), has claimed that her spouse Abdullah Tapan, had abused her during their very short marriage, which was never recognized by the state though it had been sanctioned by a local mosque (Turkey's state laws, in many instances, are quite ironically more progressive/secular than 'tribal laws' in rural regions).

According to "Today's Zaman," Tapan had a criminal record in the Urfa district and the groom's family had paid their future in-laws a considerable amount of money (approximately $30,000) for Amori's hand in marriage.

Amori's father ended up traveling to Urfa, which is very close to the Syrian border, and asked to get his daughter back. Local authorities soom arrested Tapan, and Amori was set free to return to Syria.

The child bride told police that Tapan drank too much alcohol and forced her to watch pornographic films.

Amori's family had assumed they were giving their daughter to a good Muslim man.

I should point out that anti-Muslim sites like jihadwatch.org love these sorts of stories, but I disagree with their political agenda as I see both extreme evangelical Christians and radical fundamentalist Muslims to be an equal political threat to secularism universally. And, though I don't practice Islam, my late father's religion, myself I do not in any way view it as a religion of evil.

Nevertheless, I am concerned that the social aims of Islamic conservatives in Turkey and elsewhere has reached its proverbial tipping point, but there are signs, at least in Turkey, that opposition movements will soon regain traction politically.