Jibbering in Jember – Buffoons Beat Retreat On Virginity Tests

Yes, I know it’s properly spelt ‘gibbering,’ but anything for an alliterative headline.

No matter my spelling, my mood today is restrained relief, at the news of Jember City Council’s rapid retreat from the bridgehead of buffoonery built last week by two of its members.

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The clowns made statements to the media, revelling at the prospect of imposing ‘virginity tests’ on teenage girls, the aim being to deny high school graduation to kids who ‘fail.’

After uproar, their colleagues have disowned the creepy call.

But what about the creeps in question?

It’s obviously the duty of their party leaders to remove them from not just positions of responsibility in local government, but from party membership. No serious party, surely, wants its reputation tainted by retaining such individuals within its ranks.

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“What surprises us the most is they have had sex several times and with different partners,” Habib Isa Mahdi, a lawmaker from the People’s Conscience Party (Hanura)..“There’s a need to protect our children,” he said. “Jember has to be brave to act to save them.”

Congratulations to MN Harisuddin, spokesman for the largest Muslim organisation in Indonesia, who pointed out the policy’s asinine sexism. 

“Say the bill is passed, the test would be simple to conduct, but why is it only done for the female students? How about the boys?”

But you can’t keep dimwittery down for long.

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Up popped Mufti Ali, of the PKB, (National Awakening Party) – that dork told the media the iniquitous test should not only be imposed on every Jember girl-child but expanded to the entire Province of East Java.  His vindictiveness springs off the printed page. 

“If they’re not virgins anymore, don’t let them pass!”

Then a tiny wee glimmer of the real world filtered through to his sorry soul.

“It may sound like a joke….”

But only for the twinkling of an eye. Then back into loony-tunes mode.

“..but it’s serious. It’s for the sake of the future….I agree that virginity should become a [requirement] for graduation. I will tell my friends to make it a regional regulation. We can’t only rely on their conscience to behave well. There should also be pressure.”

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• Jember DPRD Apologizes for School Girl Virginity Test Statement
• E. Java Lawmakers Want to Ban Girls From Graduating School if Not Virgins

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Of course these fatuous fellows can say and think what they like.

But any party which does not expel them with immediate effect MUST be regarded as seriously irresponsible.

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Their grotesque sexism is nauseating to read – its enactment would fall into the category of a gross violation of the victimised school-girls’ human rights.

Interestingly, even the ‘scholars’ of the MUI, who reckon that female circumcision is a human right…

  MUI’s Ma’aruf Amin …he rejects any attempt to declare this practice illegal or contrary to the principles. It comes under the sphere of “human rights,” said the Islamist leader, and is “guaranteed by the Constitution.”http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Indonesian-Ulema-in-favour-of-female-circumcision:-a-human-right-26948.html

…drew the line at the ghastly crap spouted by Ali and Isa. The ‘scholars’ said the test was haram! Maybe that caused the climb-down?

Sometimes even MUI gets it right.

Will the leaderships of PKB and Hanura?  

Oya, and how about President Jokowi – will he now order the Police to scrap the barbaric sexist practice, which is reportedly perpetrated against female recruits? Use of Virginity Tests Must End, Activists Tell Joko