Iraqi MPs have walked out of parliament after the speaker banned a woman member from asking a question and ordered television cameras switched off, witnesses said.

Gufran al-Saidi, a Shia Islamist MP, told reporters after walking out that she had been trying to raise with Mahmoud al-Mashhadani an incident earlier in the week in the parliament’s lobby. In the incident, she said, the speaker’s bodyguard had attacked her in a dispute over a mobile phone ringtone.

Saidi said the bodyguard for Mashhadani, who is a Sunni Arab, objected to her aide’s ringtone, which played a Shia religious chant that mourns al-Hussein, the grandson of prophet Muhammad who was killed in Iraq.

Sunni Muslims consider any death to be the will of God and so exaggeration in mourning is interpreted as an objection to His will.

Uh-Huh.



  1. Bill says:

    Take a few dozen nukes … turn it into glass. The middle east is getting too nuts about everything. We all have things about our culture or religion that piss us off, but we don’t threaten to cut off the heads of everybody because somebody said poo-poo about our deity.

    No doubt I’ll have a dozen head-hunters pissing and moaning about this post now ….

  2. Mr. H. Fusion says:

    Ban all cell phones from public places. Be it in a legislature, hospital, or theater. Ban ’em all.

  3. joshua says:

    I totally agree Mr. Fusion, but this was in the lobby, not in a theatre or in the meeting rooms. I think the Sunni ahole was more bothered by the fact that a woman was an MP.

  4. Gregory says:

    No doubt Bill, because you just recomended genocide.

    Which is pretty much more nuts than most of the middle east has risen too.

  5. Don says:

    Common guys, wise up.

    It is their culture and their country, why do we care.

    Let them do their stuff and we do our stuff.

  6. Mr. H. Fusion says:

    Good point joshua. It was still that darn cell phone going off though. Ban them from ALL buildings.

    The first mistake was the ring tone. The second mistake was the reaction. No cell phone, no ring tone, no reaction.

  7. John McDowell says:

    I’m with Ann Coulter. We should have killed all of their clerics and converted them to Christianity. All kidding aside, these people are split by a blood fued of a killing that occurred over 1200 years ago, sorta the ultimate Hatfields and McCoys. I think that Peter O’Toole (as T.E. Lawrence) summed it up best in “Lawrence of Arabia” when he told Omar Sherif (as Sherif Ali) that his people were a tiny peole as long as they kept killing each other over blood fueds. They don’t translate books and they create nothing (except mayhem). They are stuck in the 12th century and are trying to move back to the 7th century. They worship and pray to a metorite plus a large number of other dubious icons and treat women as chattel. To put it mildly, they have a few problems coping with the 21st century. Unfortunately, they are starting to rub up against the rest of us.

    I don’t remember who said it or exactly how it was phrased but in the 20th century the Balkans were reputed to have the dubious ability to create more history than they could consume locally. I’m afraid that the middle east will be the source of most of the history of the 21st century.

  8. joshua says:

    #4….it’s not genocide. It’s foolish, but not genocide.

    #5…In case you missed it(the last 14 years, further if you count the hostages in 1976.) there stuff is now interferring with OUR stuff.

    #6 Mr. Fusion…I’ll sign that petition. I’am cellphone free, and always will be.

  9. Bob Bagwell says:

    i don’t recall who said it or when ( it may actually have been me, just now!) but any tool allowed to evolve into a status symbol will ultimately be used first to get the attention of others and then to anoy the hell out of them! Cell phones, like cars, personal music players, etc. are really beneficial in their ways. It’s the human need for attention that leads to “ring tones” for cell phones and monster bass for cars. It’s a human flaw! Why blame the technology?

  10. Mike Voice says:

    Sunni Muslims consider any death to be the will of God and so exaggeration in mourning is interpreted as an objection to His will.

    Wow,

    Yet another reminder of how ignorant I am regarding the beliefs of others, and the various interpretations/dogmas within a given religion’s factions/denominations.

    While I also object to “exaggeration in mourning”, it is not a dogma-based objection, and I don’t try to inflict that objection on others…

  11. Milo says:

    America needs to get out of every state in the world that doesn’t clearly want them there. With the technology now available America can blast anyone and anything that annoys them. If America pulls out of Iraq, Iran will move in. As this incident, and many others, shows, Iran is welcome to it. Saudi Arabia will also move into Iraq and the games will begin! The Muslims that want to blow things up will be happy because they’ll be able to blow up their fellow Muslims. We will be happy because they aren’t blowing up us!

  12. joshua says:

    It’s kind of ironic that nobody wants America to interfere in their country’s life, but the minute someone threatens them or they have a major political problem, who do they call……not the ghoastbusters….they scream for America to help them.

    The EU wants us to not invade, or do anything anywhere, but the minute we disengage from the world they are the first to call us…..the Balkans is a good example, we tried to avoid getting into that mess, but the EU couldn’t or wouldn’t do anything to stop the genocide, so they asked us and NATO to come in, and as usual they offer token help while we carry the load. Look at Darfur, the African Union wanted to handle it, but once again, there we go, first it’s our help with negotiations, next will be the UN, followed by U.S. forces there…..just wait.

    The Palastian mess is another, when we just walked away, as the EU and Arab countries wanted, it took 3 months before they were all screaming that no peace there could be achived without the U.S…..make up your minds already.

  13. joshua says:

    I don’t agree with you very often Milo……but this time your right on…..when the Muslims have no one else to fight, they always fight eachother, hell, they even fight eachother when they DO have someone else to fight.

    I look at the Muslim world as a larger version of the Democratic party, when left to their own devices they tend to turn on eachother.

  14. ezma says:

    A lot of people do not know it but in Islamic faith you are not to commit suicide no matter what. Even the majority of muslims do not know. I am sorry to say but whoever is teaching these Palestinian and iraqis to blow themselves up should go back to the Book. And don’t tell me about the virgins in the Heaven promised for someone who blows himself up, that has no basis in Islam I know from Qur’an either and I have asked imams of mosques in America and overseas and online forums.

  15. Milo says:

    ezma: There is also nothing in the Koran about the Haj to Mecca. Doesn’t stop millions of Muslims from doing it. Most things Muslims do or don’t do aren’t in the Koran.


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