RUTHFULLY YOURS

The brave women in Iran who inspired the world and became the face of a revolution by removing their face veils in protest to the theocratic government are now being beaten, tortured, and charged with “inciting prostitution” in Iranian prisons.

Iranian police sent an official warning that traveling and spending time in public places without a religious hijab would carry a penalty of one to two months in prison which could be reduced to a lower sentence, but encouraging people not to have the veil would put them in jeopardy of one to ten years in prison and could not be converted into a substitute penalty. This criminal charge, “inciting corruption and prostitution,” is not only dangerous but demeaning.

Two women arrested for protesting the hijab have been already been informed that they face charges of “inciting corruption and prostitution” for their protest. Narges Hosseini was put on trial last week before an Ershad (Moral Guidance) court in Tehran on this charge. Shaparak Shajarizadeh, who is being held in solitary confinement in a prison near Tehran, faces the same charge.

In addition to facing the prostitution charge, Shajarizadeh has also been subjected to torture and beatings, according to her lawyer. She was also injected with an identified substance several times by force against her will.

“This is a deeply retrograde move by the Iranian authorities in their ongoing persecution of women who dare to speak out against compulsory veiling,” Magdalena Mughrabi, Amnesty International’s deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa, said in a statement. “It places many women at serious and immediate risk of unjust imprisonment while sending a chilling message to others to keep quiet while their rights are being violated.”

Vida Movahed and Azam Jangravi, two other women arrested for peaceful protests against compulsory veiling, are currently out on bail. Maryam Shariatmadari and Hamraz Sadeghi remain in detention.

According to Amnesty International, police have become increasingly brutal in their crackdown on the forced hijab. Women who take off their headscarves in public and wave them on the end of a stick have been beaten and gruffly treated by authorities.

Last Thursday, another hijab protester’s video went viral on Persian social media. Shariatmadari stood atop a concrete structure waving her hijab, but a police officer recklessly pushed her off. Her friends have reported that the fall resulted in injuries requiring surgery, but the woman is being held in prison without access to adequate medical care. CONTINUE AT SITE

Europe’s biggest problem with Hungary is that Europe doesn’t have any good ways to deal with a problem like Hungary. A brief visit here ahead of April’s elections shows the extent to which that truth is challenging the European Union’s central beliefs about itself.

Prime Minister Viktor Orban on April 8 will win his third consecutive term since 2010—his fourth term overall, including his first stint from 1998-2002. The main question is whether his Fidesz party can eke out a two-thirds supermajority in Parliament, which would enable Mr. Orban to amend the constitution at will.

This feels like another blow to democracy. Mr. Orban said in 2014, in a speech that rang alarm bells around the West, that he aspires to build an “illiberal state” on the model of Singapore, China, Russia or Turkey. He’s succeeding. Press freedom has deteriorated as the government has withdrawn its taxpayer-funded advertising from unfriendly outlets, and as ownership has been consolidated in the hands of Orban loyalists. In rural areas, independent newspapers have disappeared.

The major media are turning into propaganda arms for Fidesz, and Mr. Orban is using them to Orwellian effect by creating a foreign bogeyman to rally patriotic fervor. The bogeyman is George Soros, the left-wing Hungarian-born American financier. On a random Wednesday in February, the front pages of at least three big newspapers contained attacks on Mr. Soros for supposedly conspiring in various ways against Hungary. These particular fusillades didn’t appear overtly anti-Semitic, but that’s common enough too.

American and British conservatives may spar with Mr. Soros on policy, but sometimes the enemy of your enemy is also your enemy. Mr. Orban is using the anti-Soros sentiment he has stirred up to justify clamping down further on Hungarian civil society. The so-called Stop Soros Law under debate would impose a 25% tax on foreign donations flowing into civil-society groups and other nongovernmental organizations, whether Soros-funded or not.

Do these illiberal factors alone explain why Fidesz is cruising to an all-but-unopposed victory? No, because, let’s be honest, the rest of Hungarian politics is a mess. CONTINUE AT SITE

South Africa is going the way of Zimbabwe, once the breadbasket of Africa and a stable and productive nation which is now a hell hole of famine, epidemic and crime…..One day historians will write of the terrible outcome of Africa’s decolonization and home rule….rsk

No country ever became rich through its government’s seizure of private property (exhibit A: the Soviet Union), but politicians in South Africa want to give it another go.

That’s the disheartening news from Cape Town this week, where the National Assembly voted 241-83 on Tuesday to start a process to amend the constitution and allow land expropriation without compensation. A parliamentary committee will review the motion and report by Aug. 30.

Land long has been a fraught issue in South Africa, where during the apartheid era blacks were barred from buying property in white areas. Post-apartheid, the government bought land and offered compensation to South Africans whose property had been forcibly seized after 1913.

Many of those claims are now settled, and more than 90% of claimants chose to receive cash instead of land titles, a reflection of the country’s rapid urbanization. According to a 2016 Institute of Race Relations survey, less than 1% of South Africans think land is one of the country’s “serious unresolved problems.” Unemployment, public services, housing and crime rank far higher.