Wear Hijab or face death!

Sonia Verma in Ramallah.
photo courtesy of Times Online.

Woman broadcasters told to wear hijab or face death.

There is no compulsion in Islam, but there is compulsion in Islamofashion. Evidently.

As one of Gaza’s most seasoned television news correspondents, Lana Shaheen has braved everything from Israeli airstrikes to Palestinian sniper fire to get her story. But in ten years of reporting from one of the world’s most dangerous war zones, she has never felt fear like the kind that gripped her when a chilling text message was sent to her mobile phone.

“You are without shame or morals,” it read. “We will cut your throat from vein to vein if needed to protect the spirit and moral of this nation.”

The threat was an excerpt from a longer letter sent by a radical Palestinian group to more than a dozen women television broadcasters working in Gaza and the West Bank.

More background on the incident here.