Media Ignores That Muslim Hate Crime Hoaxer Is in Real Danger

After her story made international headlines, it came out last week that a hijab-wearing Muslim who said she was harassed and threatened on a New York subway by drunk Donald Trump supporters actually made the whole story up.

But Yasmin Seweid doesn’t seem to be a cynical hoaxer; she apparently made up the story to avoid the wrath of her strict Muslim father over her being out late and having a non-Muslim boyfriend.

And so while purveying this fake news about Seweid being the victim of an anti-Muslim hate crime, the establishment propaganda media is missing the real story: this young woman is in very real danger.

It is clear that Yasmin Seweid has every reason to be afraid of her father, who actually forced her to shave her head after the story broke of her hoax. This was not, apparently, a punishment for the hoax, but for dallying with a Christian boyfriend.

Her shaved head — and even shaved eyebrows — in full view as she appeared in court with her clearly angry and disgusted father over the hate crime hoax ought to wake authorities up to the danger she is in.

The shaving is designed to humiliate and subdue her.

In this kind of thinking, the hair is the core of the woman’s attractiveness — hence the hijab, which is supposed to remove the occasion of temptation for men. So shaving the head de-feminizes her and removes her attractiveness, which in the Islamic view is all a woman has.

Now that the truth about her story — that it was all false — has been revealed, some of the curious aspects of it are falling into place. For example, not long after she initially complained of having been harassed by the Trump-supporting louts on the subway, just as the media was in full feeding frenzy mode, she went missing.

She may not have been prepared for the media spotlight. Yasmin Seweid is just 18 years old, and perhaps didn’t realize she was giving the establishment propaganda media what it wants most in this world: a case that reinforces their narrative. She gave them a story of an innocent, pious Muslim being victimized by Trump-loving “Islamophobes.” She may have disappeared in a panic over the media attention for a story she knew was false.

But another possibility must also be considered: Yasmin may have disappeared because she was fleeing a family from whom she believed she was in genuine danger.

Yasmin might have thought, and may still think, she could be killed for being too “Westernized” – a fate suffered by other Muslim women and girls in the U.S. and Canada.

For example, Aqsa Parvez was killed by her father and brother for refusing to wear the hijab.

Amina and Sarah Said were killed by their father for having non-Muslim boyfriends.

There have been others.

In such cases, the killer believes he has cleansed the family’s honor. Muslims commit 91 percent of honor killings worldwide. A manual of Islamic law certified as a reliable guide to Sunni orthodoxy by Al-Azhar, the most respected authority in Sunni Islam, says that “retaliation is obligatory against anyone who kills a human being purely intentionally and without right.” However, “not subject to retaliation” is “a father or mother (or their fathers or mothers) for killing their offspring, or offspring’s offspring” (‘Umdat al-Salik o1.1-2).

In other words, someone who kills his child incurs no legal penalty under Islamic law.

The Palestinian Authority gives pardons or suspended sentences for honor murders. Iraqi women have asked for tougher sentences for Islamic honor murderers, who get off lightly now. Syria, in 2009, scrapped a law limiting the length of sentences for honor killings, however:

… the new law says a man can still benefit from extenuating circumstances in crimes of passion or honour “provided he serves a prison term of no less than two years in the case of killing.”

In 2003, the Jordanian Parliament voted down, on Islamic grounds, a provision designed to stiffen penalties for honor killings. Al-Jazeera reported:

Islamists and conservatives said the laws violated religious traditions and would destroy families and values.

Until the encouragement Islamic law gives to honor killing is acknowledged and confronted, more women will suffer. And in the meantime, Yasmin Seweid is in serious danger.

Even if he has no intention of killing her, her father has already savagely abused her by forcing her to shave her head. That is the real story here.

But New York authorities and the propaganda media, committed to the idea that Islam is a religion of peace, will no doubt not even consider that possibility, and will leave her to her fate.