Islamic Extremists Stop Female Wrestling in Bangladesh
After demonstrators took to the streets in the capitol of Bangladesh, authorities there cancelled that country’s first scheduled female wrestling tournament.
The state-run wrestling federation hoped to have women from across the country participate in the event, but gave in after protesters complained that wrestling was “indecent and vulgar for Muslim women.”
The BBC reported, however, that the protesters misunderstood the nature of the wrestling match — the women would wrestle fully clothed, rather than wearing WWF-style uniforms or, Allah forbid, shorts.
The BBC quoted wrestling federation director Tabiur Rhaman as saying,
There is a misunderstanding. They might have thought that it would be a tournament like WWF, but we can assure them there will be nothing like that because we are fully aware of our religious sentiments.
Perhaps it is Rhaman, however, who misunderstands the opposition to women wrestling. Take Islamic reactionary Moulana Mohiuddin Khan who the BBC quotes as saying,
We are even ready to sacrifice our lives, if necessary, to protect our country from any kind of indecent sports.
Please, Khan, feel free to make that sacrifice any time.
Source:
Women’s wrestling called off. The BBC, July 4, 2004.
The Islamic Extremists Stop Female Wrestling in Bangladesh by Brian Carnell, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.
Tags: Uncategorized
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.