Editor-writer for right-wing Arutz Sheva Site, Gil Ronen
Original guest piece submitted by Farha Khaled
Norway Ministry of Justice confirms that a 2010 Oslo police report on rapes which Gil Ronen and other Islamophobes claim has statistics showing the rapists were all Muslims are untrue.
Earlier this month, Arutz Sheva, an Israeli website popular with Kahanists, an outlawed movement that is gaining prominence with the rise of the extreme right in Israel published ‘Norwegian Minister Links Norwegian Rape Wave To Israel’ by Gil Ronen. The story purported to shed light upon a conspiracy involving a Norwegian minister who ordered the truth about an Oslo police report detailing rape statistics to be hushed up, otherwise Israel may use the report against Norway because the rapists were Muslims. Ronen offered no evidence for his claims except to cite an Israeli blogger who writes a Hebrew blog, one Yehuda Bello whom he claims understands Norwegian and has contacts in Norway. Ronen wrote:
Bello reports that from January to late October, 48 rapes were confirmed to have been carried out in Oslo alone, 45 of them by Muslims. 48 rapes were confirmed to have been carried out in Oslo alone, 45 of them by Muslims.
Ronen contradicts this statement in another paragraph where he writes that the politically correct culture prevents them from being reported as ‘Muslim’ crimes. When journalists expressed scepticism at the reports blaming the Norwegian minister, all citing Ronen, the headline at Arutz Sheva was edited to read ‘Muslim ‘Rape Wave’ Reported in Oslo‘. The original claims about the ministerial cover up, can still be seen quoted by propagandists of Islamophobia including Robert Spencer of the David Horowitz organisation FrontPage Mag. The only source Ronen links to as proof, is an earlier piece he wrote in June 2011 with the headline ‘Police Report: All Assault Rapists in Oslo Follow Muhammad‘, where he claims:
Norway’s police issues report with amazing statistic: all assault rapes in Oslo in 2010 were perpetrated by Muslims
Meanwhile, anti Muslim bloggers like Pat Condell jumped onto the bandwagon as did hatemongers Pamela Geller and Debbie Schlussel , the latter has suggested that 9/11 could have been prevented had the feds paid more attention to Rabbi Kahane instead of making Kahanism illegal. Not surprisingly, none of these bigots linked to ‘Voldtekt i den globale byen’ the Oslo 2010 rape statistics report which they were misrepresenting. It is worth mentioning here that Geller and Schlussel along with Caroline Glick have received flak for attempting to tie the Breivik attacks to Norway’s anti Israel stance. The gist of Ronen’s earlier piece is that Norway’s bored rich population have their priorities wrong. But never fear because a neo nazi like Fjordmann (Anders Brievik idol), and by now discredited Yehuda Bello, are here to educate the Norwegians, whom he describes:
They are also traditionally anti-Semitic, he believes. As a result their politicians and press are focused on Israel’s actions in Shechem (Nablus) and Hevron and choose to ignore Muslim misdeeds – be they in Iran, Syria, or in Norway itself.
What he writes next appears to be projection:
Despite this, he reports, the Muslim rape campaign has become so terrible that even Norwegians have begun to recognize the reality around them, and in recent months there have been protests where the slogan was “Muslims out!”.
If Ronen believes that expelling Norway’s Muslims will make the Zionist expansionist project more acceptable to Norwegians then it’s a misguided assumption. The anti-Israeli occupation sentiment in Norway existed before the Muslim immigrants arrived in any significant numbers.
Shortly after Arutz Sheva published the Oslo rapes report in early December, I wrote to The Royal Norwegian Ministry of Justice and the Police asking them to verify Gil Ronen’s claims. I received the following reply from Elisabeth Lund a Senior Adviser to the Ministry:
Statistics regarding assault rapists:
The Oslo Police District has given a report of rapes in Oslo in 2010. The report shows that for all types of rape, except assault rape, European perpetrators are in the majority, and they are mostly Norwegian. Assault rapes covers only five identified unique person. These have all a foreign origin. The number is however, so low that it does not provide a basis for drawing conclusions with regard to country of origin. Two of them were very young (under 18) and two had severe psychiatric diagnoses and cannot be regarded as representative of their ethnic culture. It is highlighted in the report that generalizations like “Oslo’s rapists are foreigners”, which have been seen in media, are wrong. The report gives no statistics regarding religion of rapists.”
Yours Sincerely,
Grethe Kleivan
Deputy Director General
Gil Ronen’s claims can therefore be dismissed for what they are: the usual fanatical anti-Muslim fear-mongering so common amongst his ilk. Those who parroted Ronen’s claims should be ashamed of themselves and at the very least correct their mistake, but don’t expect “Facts” to get in the way of their hate propaganda.
Farha Khaled writes about Islamophobia. Her op-eds have appeared in a variety of print and online publications. http://farhakhaled.blogspot.com She can be followed on Twitter http://twitter.com/farhakhaled
December 23rd, 2011 at 12:56 pm
No surprise lies followed by lies .
December 23rd, 2011 at 1:07 pm
I officially broke with my fellow atheist Pat Condell after reading this article. I had my doubts about Pat Condell after David Horowitz endorsed him and after his diatribe against the Palestinians but I still liked his ridicule of religion.
Now it seems that Pat Condell relies on falsehoods to dispense his message and when he relied on these false rape statistics, I believed him. He fooled me and now I feel ashamed.
December 23rd, 2011 at 1:14 pm
we all know islamohobes hate facts it something that gets in the way of there hatemongering, but then again considering there audience who would probably hit themselves in the genitals if robert spencer told them it would them more fertile or that they can get healthy skin by diving into a volcano naked its not surprising that they are taken seriously.
December 23rd, 2011 at 1:15 pm
meant to put “make” before “them”
December 23rd, 2011 at 1:30 pm
Demonizing Muslims in order to whitewash Israel is the tactic always used by Zionist. Unfortunately, they have been largely successful in employing it. Their successful was partly due to the prevalence of ignorance.
The purpose is to “depoliticize” the conflict and make it look like a “cultural” one. Norman Fenkelstein time and again has undermined such tactics as cheap and deceptive.
December 23rd, 2011 at 1:31 pm
Is the report from the Oslo police available to the public?
December 23rd, 2011 at 1:47 pm
Am I missing something here?
As of Nov 2011, Oslo had 48 assault rapes, with 45 believed to have been carried out either by “foreigners” or “non-Nordic” assailants.
The e-mail from Grethe Kleivan seems to be presented in a misleading way.
There weren’t 5 assault rapes in Oslo. There were of course many more. But apparently there were five convictions?
In any event, the victims are able to usually identify the ethnicity of their attackers and that’s the data Gil Ronen is using, whereas this article is only relying on data for convicted rapes to make a case that there were “only” five assault rapes in Oslo perpetrated by “foreigners”.
The reality is there were many more. And as can be found from simple internet searches, the victims identify their attackers as “non-Nordic” the vast majority of the time – 45 out of 48 between the start of 2011 to Nov 2011, for instance.
December 23rd, 2011 at 1:58 pm
Here’s also a Norwegian news segment, with a police official being interviewed, confirming Gil Ronen’s claim:
December 23rd, 2011 at 2:23 pm
Guest,
Thanks for this story. Loon Watch is an excellent resource for anyone interested in debunking the claims of anti Muslim bigots.
December 23rd, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Believing Atheist,
Pat Condel is joke. Like Robert Spencer, he is either very sloppy in his research, or he doesn’t care about the truth. As for Horowitz, Pat Condel made the mistake of using him as source, and I’m glad he did, because he unwittingly helped reveal what a liar that man really is. Coughlan616 did an excellent job showing us why, we can’t trust Horowitz, and Condel was a fool for doing so in the first place.
Pat Condell is both Useless and an Idiot
December 23rd, 2011 at 2:33 pm
Interesting story-that is always a popular tactic, to say that the “other” will hurt our women and children, it’s a good way of dehumanizing them. Leaveit2bob are you dissapointed by this story that says that not all foreign people are rapists??
December 23rd, 2011 at 2:40 pm
To Leaveit2Bob
As of Nov 2011, Oslo had 48 assault rapes, with 45 believed to have been carried out either by “foreigners” or “non-Nordic” assailants.
Please read the article before commenting. You assume that all foreigners are Muslims, and all Muslims are non Nordic.
Were Bosnian Muslims foreign? Are the Russian Muslims foreigners? What about the Scandinavian converts to Islam? Norway has white Muslims too, converts and white Europeans, as well as white Arabs.
HOw about the non Muslim immigrants? Why couldn’t the rapists have been non Muslim immigrants? Why the assumption and rush to label them Muslim?
In any case, read the two articles that Ronen wrote. You will note he did not say ‘non Nordic’ or ‘foreigners’ but ‘Muslims’. The bigoted assumption that all foreigners are Muslims is a ploy he uses to appeal to neo nazis who are anti immigrant so that they can have an extra tool to use against Muslims, ie. to link the two together.
No concern for the victims, otherwise he would be condemning all the rapists. Rape is a crime, regardless of who does it, in Islam it carries the death penalty. If a Muslim man rapes, he is certainly disprespecting his religion. That was the point here.
December 23rd, 2011 at 2:44 pm
To LeaveitBob
Is the report from the Oslo police available to the public?
Thank you for proving that you did not read the article.
I linked to the orignal report in my article, something that Gil Ronen and the Islamophobes like Pat Condell did not.
Will you read the article before taking pot shots in the dark? I do not mean to cause offence when I say, it’s better to let people think you are a fool instead of opening your mouth and removing any shadow of a doubt that you are, as you just did.
December 23rd, 2011 at 2:50 pm
To LeaveitBob, I apologise, I had linked but the link doesn’t show above for some reason, mistake in formatting perhap’s.
Here is the 88 page police report.
Voldtekt i den globale byen
https://www.politi.no/vedlegg/lokale_vedlegg/oslo/Vedlegg_1309.pdf
December 23rd, 2011 at 3:32 pm
What a bunch of liars!
December 23rd, 2011 at 3:46 pm
@Farha Khaled
Excellent article. We really needed someone to counter the deluge of propaganda.
The alleged scourge of “Muslim” rape in Oslo has gone viral and at this point, it’s hard to dig through the hate sites to get in touch with reality.
Before the bigots swooped in, a New York Times article contradicted the notion of crazed “dark” immigrants ambushing white victims in the streets:
“The statistics tell us that the safest place for women is outside, on the street — most rapes happen at home,” said Tove Smaadahl, general manager of the Shelter Movement. In a 2005 survey by the Norwegian Institute for Urban and Regional Research, 9 percent of female respondents in a relationship reported experiencing sexual assault.
…
“Forty percent of rapes in which the perpetrator did not know the victim but was successfully identified were prosecuted, with conviction rates of more than 70 percent. By contrast, only 14 percent of suspects in partner rape were convicted. Suspects of immigrant origin were particularly likely to be punished.”
The article suggested spousal/partner rape and flaws in the legal system were key issues, NOT (Muslim or non-Muslim) immigrants. Some hate sites even linked to this article, as if it strengthened their case.
I guess they assume their fans won’t actually click the link and read the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/world/europe/in-norway-gender-
equality-does-not-extend-to-the-bedroom.html?pagewanted=all
December 23rd, 2011 at 3:50 pm
How about this? –
Oslo police:
“All sexual asaults involving rape has been comitted by men of non-wetsern background.
From 2005 – 2010 a total of 86 sexual assaults involving rape was reported in 83 cases the man was described as havung a “non-wetern appearance.”"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_rHFKRwv5Y&feature=player_embedded#!
Maybe this video, which is taken from from Norvegian television, has wrong translation? Please, get it right!:)
And this –
““It can not be denied that many of the culprits have an ethnic background with a critical view of women,” Conservative party justice critic Andre Oktay Dahl told TV2.”
http://www.thelocal.no/page/view/count-of-sex-assaults-doubles-in-oslo
Is this information also biased by “racist bigots”?
December 23rd, 2011 at 4:18 pm
Don’t even bother with jihadbob or whatever stupid name he uses. Morons like bob and otherr can be told facts a millioh times, the right doesn’t like facts because (a)a lot of them are poorly educated and propaganda, lies and slogans are easier to absorb than facts. And (b) racist bigots are always under the delusion that whites are constantly under threat by non-whites.
December 23rd, 2011 at 5:02 pm
YOu dont have to comment back to Bob he is a well known Muslim-bashing troll that is here all the time repeating stuff over and over again even when he is proven wrong ….. You can go back true the Archives and look at the comment section It full of his comments
December 23rd, 2011 at 5:31 pm
“Maybe this video, which is taken from from Norvegian television, has wrong translation? Please, get it right!:)”
I think it’s quite likely that the “translation” is completely fabricated. Perhaps if you actually backed up your assertion with a legitimate source then we would take you a bit more seriously. All you provide is a random video posted by a random deranged individual, a blatant Islamophobe, and fervent Christian, as evidenced by his Youtube profile. His moniker also indicates anti-Muslim paranoia, which makes your attempt at sarcasm—is this information also biased by “racist bigots”?—very hollow indeed. The source of your information is indeed palpably a bigot.
“Here’s also a Norwegian news segment, with a police official being interviewed, confirming Gil Ronen’s claim:”
Oh wow, a video posted by “blogspostKitmanTV.” I am so convinced.
Yawn, perhaps by the dismally low standards of the Islamophobic blogosphere it “confirms” your hero’s claim. The video you bring is the same as Leicester’s, and ergo not a legitimate source. We have seen time and time again how deceitful anti-Muslim bigots are when it comes to translations.
Now bugger off Bob.
December 23rd, 2011 at 6:02 pm
As somebody who remembers the mid-twentieth century American South, I can state that in-group males always have a prurient obsession with “outsider” men raping “their” women. Conversely, when in-group men force themselves on outsider women, it isn’t “real” rape, and if an in-group man violates an in-group woman (or even little girl), he had better have been an utterly violent stranger on the street, or she is a slut or a Lolita.
December 23rd, 2011 at 8:01 pm
Thanks Farha, I look forward to your news, it’s always unusual and with good sources. I wish you wrote more, you seem to know what you talk about. Thank you for clearing this up with the Norway.
Loon Watch is a good resource. Good writers. Can I ask who is the owner of this site? Put a donation button so we can donate, or are you very rich?
I am impressed. I used to find information about Islamophobia at Islamophobia Watch, but this site is far superior.
December 24th, 2011 at 1:43 am
Even if we assume the news to be true, Cynics are in great shocking impact that how could it be possible that Muslims do such things because they know such character is not from Islamic ethics.
December 24th, 2011 at 5:12 am
Leicester, did you read the article? As has been stated, the police figures bear out that such comments are baseless based on the facts in the police report.
Jack
December 24th, 2011 at 5:31 am
NassirH:
Oh wow, a video posted by “blogspostKitmanTV.” I am so convinced.
=============================================
Understood. Something posted by “NassirH” must be ultimately convincing.:)
More from thelocal.no -
“Another newspaper spotlighting rape reported that police numbers show a minority of attackers have been “non-westerners”. Most of 2011’s attackers HAVE NOT BEEN IDENTIFIED.
“In 2008/2009, we identified 13 assailants behind 35 attacks,” police inspector Hanne Kristin Rohde told Dagbladet.
“Six of those had at some point been asylum seekers and had either received a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ (to residency status).”
[...]
“That the MAJORITY of culprits are described as “non-Nordic” does not mean that they are asylum seekers,” Børresen was quoted by broadcaster NRK as saying.”
http://www.thelocal.no/page/view/no-slowdown-in-oslo-rape-surge
Yes, not MAJORITY. Majority are not “asylum seekers” anymore. Already citizens.
And also – “not being identified” (not being caught) of course means that we’re not allowed to generalize the date of those being “identified” (caught), right?:)
Those immigrant rapists must be very lame and clumsy – that’s why they’ve been caught. All those other rapists who manage to flee must be native norwegians.:)
December 24th, 2011 at 5:34 am
Correction of spotted error:
And also – “not being identified” (not being caught) of course means that we’re not allowed to generalize the DATA of those being “identified” (caught), right?:)
December 24th, 2011 at 8:10 am
”
From 2005 – 2010 a total of 86 sexual assaults involving rape was reported in 83 cases the man was described as havung a “non-wetern appearance.”
Are you saying that Islam is a race? thats impossible! the Muslim movement keeps telling us that Islam is not a race and that any race can be Muslim.
It is interesting that non-western now means Muslim to the anti-muslim movement. This way when non-whites do anything bad it automatically becomes a Muslim crime.
December 24th, 2011 at 9:11 am
Islamophobes and Statistics don’t go together
December 24th, 2011 at 12:41 pm
@Leaveit2Bob @Leicester
You are so out of this world. Your links do not even say they were Muslim.
Most of the time hate and stupidity come in one package.
Anyway,
Since most sex offenders in the USA are white males, should white males go back to Europe?
http://www.mincava.umn.edu/documents/sexoff/sexoff.html
http://www.txdps.state.tx.us/wanted/sexoffenders/toptensexoffenders.htm#
December 24th, 2011 at 1:30 pm
IF you Islamophobes and hatemongers want Muslims to leave, lets see what happens! That would include Muslim doctors and physicians whom the Westerners place their FULL TRUST and their LIFE. Let’s see what happens, go ahead, we’ll leave and lets see what happens, but don’t come crawling back to us.
December 24th, 2011 at 2:03 pm
@Atheist Arab well you know being an idiot is “cool” nowadays. Nobody cares about knowing better. >.>
December 24th, 2011 at 5:54 pm
I think the translation is pretty much saying what it is saying. I am Swedish, but the dialectal variations aren’t that big. So I clearly understand what they are saying. And the news reporter are saying this, translated into Swedish:
“Alla överfallsvåldtäckter i Oslo i fjol har bedrivits av män med icke-västlig bakgrund”
“All assault rapes commited last year in Oslo was carried out by men with a non-western background”.
They then go on explaining that every assault the past 5 years leading to a conviction (they actually say: ‘with a known assailant’) was commited by non-Norwegians (here they are not specifically talking about non-Western men).
In Oslo alone, there are about 50.000 Swedes (both ethnic Swedes and non-ethic Swedes) living and working in the city. By “foreign” they could without a doubt be refering to these Swedes; or the Danish, the German, the Latin American, the Spanish, the Islandic, the Russian/Slavic peoples. Some of them are conjecturally Pakistani or Vietnamese: The Vietnamese-Norwegians are the fifth largest immigrant group in Norway. The Pakistani population make up less then 1% of the Norwegian population, but are considered to be one of the largest immigrant groups.
In any event, whoever these “foreign” culprits may be, and of whatever ethnic group they may belong to, the report does not say “islamic background”. I can’t speak for Norway, but in Sweden, the State sweepingly counts any first generation immigrant as “muslim”: of course, being that they originate from a muslim-majority land. That approach obviously facilitates the ever-changing demographics of the country. Logically though, a lot of these people consider themselves Atheistic, Agnostic, Communistic or whatever non-Islamic -ism that may be in existence today.
In the -70s & -80s most crimes were commited in areas with a significantly low income and the perpetrators most likely belonged to the working class or ‘sub-class’. Much hasn’t changed. We still consider these areas to be problematic: the only distinct disparity would of course be that the demographics has been modified. These areas are not occupied by ‘sub-class’ Swedes anymore – as they’ve had at least 30 years to recover econimically ever since: instead they have been superceded by the new lower- and working class: the immigrants. That is not to say that immigration has not brought with it a complex of problems directly related to immigration – that is characteristical to immigration.
A lot of these “New Swedes” are not adapting as well to the new culture they are encountering as they were expected to: furthermore a lot of times they carry with them bagages of war and genocide which obviously need to be dealt with politically. And there is time. Third generation non-Western ethnic groups are being born as we speak: eventually some of these immigrants will assimilate into the rest of society as time goes by, while the rest will learn how to integrate. Just as the people of the -60s, -70s, and -80s matured economically, so will the immigrants of the generations to come learn how to cope with being non-ethically, but culturally Swedish.
December 24th, 2011 at 7:10 pm
http://www.ssb.no/english/subjects/03/05/a_krim_tab_en/tab/tab-2005-12-14-44-en.html
according to the norweigen government (who are obviously all secret stealth jihading muslamics) most rapes in norway are comitted by norweigeins
December 24th, 2011 at 10:55 pm
@Leaveit2bob:
Well well well. If it isn’t Jihad/Just/Jenga Bob. Has your buddy Halal Pork/Cartoon changed names as well?
December 25th, 2011 at 9:13 am
@Believing Atheist
Pat Condell has been increasingly sympathetic towards Christian fundamentalism ever since he endorsed UKIP. First, he supports Tom Tancredo’s “anti-Sharia Law” bill; then, he sides with Christian fundamentalist Pat Robertson on a petition to stop the Park51 cultural center; now, he attacks an atheist group for launching complaints against a Nativity scene being set-up on a government property, which violates the separation of church and state. His reasoning for defending the Nativity scene is that Christianity is “part of his culture,” a piece of culture that he bashed for over three years. He’s been inadvertently unmasking his xenophobic agenda. I wouldn’t be surprised if Condell ends up converting like blogger Raving Atheist did when he strangely took on pro-life positions that didn’t mesh well with his beliefs.
December 25th, 2011 at 10:06 am
Hello Benjamin Taghiov.
If you can read Norwegian (or get by with Swedish), could you please inform us what the police report linked by Farha Khaled in this thread says about rapists in Oslo and their ethnic breakdown?
Frankly, the e-mail she received from the deputy director general seems pretty incomprehensible. I’m not entirely sure what it actually says, but the author seems to be basing her data on convicted rapists whereas Gil Ronen and others are using data for assault rape on reported rapes – which, of course, is much more logical if only a small fraction of rapists in Oslo are ever even arrested.
December 25th, 2011 at 10:08 am
You are so out of this world. Your links do not even say they were Muslim.
I never mentioned Muslim in any of my previous posts, though I was called an Islamophobic bigot for some reason.
The stats show that rape is a non-Nordic problem in Oslo and not necessarily a Muslim one – we don’t have the data where the victim identified her assailant’s religion, just his ethnicity.
December 25th, 2011 at 1:28 pm
@Leaveit2Bob
Bob you wrote: “The stats show that rape is a non-Nordic problem in Oslo and not necessarily a Muslim one – we don’t have the data where the victim identified her assailant’s religion, just his ethnicity.”
If that’s the case then your post is irrelevant to this discussion because the title of this thread is “Gil Ronen’s Fabricated Statistics About Oslo Rapists Being All Muslim”
Bob did you know that it helps once in awhile to actually read the headline? This way you don’t make a complete fool out of yourself.
December 25th, 2011 at 9:26 pm
bob:
“I’m not entirely sure what it actually says, but the author seems to be basing her data on convicted rapists whereas Gil Ronen and others are using data for assault rape on reported rapes – which, of course, is much more logical if only a small fraction of rapists in Oslo are ever even arrested.”
More logical? Please explain how… more logical perhaps if you want to come to the conclusion of ‘all rapists are Muslim’ but not more logical if you want to find the truth of the matter. Logically, basing your data on one type of rape, of which there were only a handful of cases and only five identified perpetrators, rather than all the available data makes no sense. The email from the Deputy Director General themselves confirms and states this very fact! But as we both know bob, your logic has sadly failed on a tremendous number of occasions.
Anyway, I think that Benjamin Taghiov’s post was very fair and well written. It shows the reason behind these sorts of crimes, nothing to do with ‘rape jihad’ or anything but more to do with where the people come from. It is only those with certain motives that try and twist it any other way.
Jack
December 27th, 2011 at 4:02 pm
Great digging.
What a superb job, this girl Farha Khaled has the scoop at her own blog too. Glad to read Farha here. She made mincemeat out of this lying Kahanist, Gilronen and Arutz Sheva.
Did Arutz sheva respond to their lying editor? Why should they, Pamela Geller and Daniel Greenfield 2 kahanist jewish americans write for Arutz Sheva too.
April 9th, 2012 at 6:16 pm
Hmmmm… Not to disagree with the vast majority on this website, and I am not sure about the total facts here, but I would point out that the letter from Deputy Director General Grethe Kleivan seems very dodgy and is clearly going out of its way to be politically correct and non-controversial.
In particular, Kleivan’s fuzziness about the exact numbers, use of percentages, fuzziness about nationalities of suspects, as well as setting off to the side all “assault rapes” (?) as a special category that needn’t be tabulated, etc, etc, is odd. Also I would point out that a “majority of suspects” being European, only implies that a minimum of 51% of the suspects are european, whereas obviously europeans represent an approximately 98% majority in a country like Norway.
I think that in general, the tenor of the original story which many people found to be so hateful, was actually just focusing on the fact that the Norwegian and other Scandinavian law enforcement agencies were not very forthcoming with information about rape demographics, and that the motivation for this was a very politically-driven concern about not offending religious sub-groups or stepping on political toes, so to speak. This “letter of refutation” does little, in my view, to change that perception–conspicuously declining to mention nationalities at all, just “Europeans” and “others”… presumably Chinese or American immigrants, of French, if I was going to guess.
Furthermore, this whole article manages to dodge the question of whether attitudes toward women in muslim countries are less respectful, more aggressive, more tolerant of rape and violence, more domineering and more puritanical than attitudes toward women in other countries. It is, of course, understandable that such questions would be beyond the scope of this article, however.