Public prosecutors in Spain have dropped charges of "advocating gender violence" against a Muslim cleric who, on April 2013, preached a two-hour sermon in Spanish, entitled "The Queens of Islam," during which he made a number of pronouncements about the role of women in Spanish society, including: "Any woman who wears perfume and leaves the house and walks past men who can smell her perfume is a fornicator, and every glance she gets is a fornication."
The case involves Malik Ibn Benaisa, a Muslim imam based in Ceuta, a Spanish exclave in North Africa where Muslims constitute about 50% of the total population.
Benaisa also said that women should be banned from wearing blue jeans and high heels and from leaving the house unless their hands and face are completely covered.
The comments, which were aired on Spanish public television, enraged women's rights activists and triggered a nationwide debate over when religious speech becomes abusive and crosses the line into "sexual discrimination" and "gender violence." » | Soeren Kern | Tuesday, August 20, 2013
